The Overhaul Principle
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: A Gage rival comes to roost at the station. Rampart comes under fire and Dixie inherits the position of head of triage.


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Twenty Five

25. The Overhaul Principle Season Four- Episode 25 Short summary-  
A Gage rival comes to roost at the station. Rampart comes under fire and Dixie inherits the position of head of triage.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Long Summary-  
Johnny goes to nap in the bunkroom and wakes up hours later to find Brice checking his lifesigns at his neck. Gage learns of Paramedic Craig Brice's transfer to his work shift. He and the gang respond to a gravel works accident involving a conveyer belt and a heatstroked child rock buried in a car. Fatigue afterwards causes Gage to fall asleep in the squad.  
Marco and Cap both feel trepidations about the bad gravel works call and talk about it privately. Brice and Gage set up a mutual joke for the rest of the station gang to suffer and they bring Kel, Joe and Dixie in on it, too. Nurse Carol and Dr.  
Early are caught in a hostage situation when a disgruntled patient pulls out a gun at Rampart. Police Officers Jim Reed and Pete Malloy of Adam 12 arrive with Station 51 when a fire alarm at the hospital is pulled. Dixie treats a shot orderly and shows a student nurse how to triage when she becomes head of triage during the Code Dr. Black, lethal weapons used emergency. Joe Early is found head injured and being held hostage by the rampant patient's wife in the man's patient room. Johnny and Brice effect a clever rescue. Later,  
they spring their joke on the others at the station using a parade route and a box of soda cans.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The Story Unfolds...

Season Four, Episode Twenty Five.  
The Overhaul Principle Debut Launch: September 1st, 2005.

*  
From: "Roxy Dee" Date: Sat Sep 3, 2005 6:27 pm Subject: The Transfer~~

Nine p.m. was only half an hour old when Johnny Gage decided to beg off a Sunday night challenge of cards and chess with the others. "Night all, I'm going to bed. I can't keep my eyes open any more."

Chet Kelly looked up in surprise from the seriously aggressive war game he was currently engaged in with Marco Lopez. "What's the matter? You sick or something? Roy, are you paying attention here?  
The perpetual night owl's turning in before any of us for a change."

Roy, engrossed in the Bogart movie on the tiny black and white,  
didn't even look up. "I heard ya.. Enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts. Chet, he's not sick. If Johnny was sick, he'd be complaining about how bad he feels to everybody with every gory detail of symptomology. You know how he is.."

"Thanks a lot, partner.." Johnny grumbled, rubbing his eyes as he shuffled to a halt by the kitchen door leading out to the bunk room. "Nice to know I rate a full vote of confidence around here."

"Only when you're on a firehose or at the working end of a defibrillator, Gage. Don't get so bent out of shape. I mean,  
who knows your personality better than the guys who work side by side with you just about every day of your life?" Kelly said. "You should take advantage of this free status check from us, Johnny. It might teach you a few things about yourself that you don't usually know about when your physical chips are down. We can see how you really are when you're not even aware of it." Kelly added secretly, right as Marco cleaned him out of a set of aces at the end of a three stacked face off in their war game. "Marco! That's not fair. You already have two others.."

"That's how the cards fell, Chet. Sorry." Lopez grinned, completely unapologetic. He eagerly scooped them up into his discard pile. "Johnny, don't listen to them. Hope you sleep sound. Don't worry, I'll keep him quiet for ya." Marco said tossing his head at the fidgetty Chet.

"Thanks, Marco. I appreciate that. And I think I will. The weather's cooling off for the fall and it took me by surprise.  
This time of year always makes me bushed when it does that. Hot during the day, then down right freezing at night. Messes with your metabolism.." Gage mumbled while yawning.

"That and a few other things.." Chet quipped.

Cap looked up from the sink where he was washing dishes.  
"Shush, Kelly. Let him go to bed unmolested or I'll send you to yours too, for picking on him when he's not dishing it out to defend himself."

Kelly plugged it up.

Johnny just threw his hands at them all in sleepy disgust without looking at anybody, and scratched his frumpy hair.

Gage never remembered hitting his pillow.

That was a distinct disadvantage when he was awakened hours later by a cool set of fingers digging into his neck for a light pulse check.  
"Ahh!! Get off me..." he mumbled, shoving the hand away angrily.  
"I'm fine, don't be stupid." he said without even looking who it might be.

A mild voice, neutral of reaction, met his comment evenly. "I've been called many things, Mr. Gage, but I believe that's the first time anyone's ever called me unintelligent."

Recognition flared unpleasantly clear and Johnny rolled over and shot up bolt upright in shock. "Brice? What the heck are y-  
Why are you here now?" He shook cobwebs out of his head and immediately tempered his sarcastic tones for sake of civility.  
"I mean, wait a minute, I knew you were coming to the station, but I thought you were transferring into C shift on the other rotation.."

"I was, until yesterday. Then I did a little more calculating and decided that my financial budgetting would best be managed,  
if I took A shift. Captain Stanley was kind enough to push my paperwork to the proper channels necessary to accomodate my needs." Craig said, pushing up his glasses. "If you're wondering why I'm sitting on your bed, the explanation is that Captain Stanley asked if I'd check to see if you were still breathing since you slept right through what they called,  
the midnight popcorn feast.." Brice frowned in confusion.

"Oh, Brice.. He was just kidding. Why do you always have to take things so literal all the time? If I was sick, do you think I'd be in here by myself, being allowed to sleep, unmonitored?"

"That's true. You'd be evaluated at Rampart for any detrimental health effects and then you'd either be allowed to stay at work or be sent home on doctor's orders, to recover from them." Brice reasoned.

"So they got to you, too, huh..." Johnny said mildly, pulling the blankets a little tighter around his shoulders.

Brice said nothing, freezing in place at the sudden sharing of confidence.

"Don't worry about it. Sometimes their joking gets under my skin, too. You should have seen me when the water cans were flying thick.. But between you and me, I know humor's not your strong point."

Brice finally looked up from adjusting the pair chrome silver pens he carried a little straighter in his paramedic's shirt pocket. "I appreciate your honest observation about me. But how are we going to...." he bit his lip and said without emotion."..get back at the other guys?"

"By doing nothing." Johnny's sleepy face cracked into a huge devil's grin.  
"Or better yet.. Grab a bunk.."

The dim light from the moon outside glinted faintly in Craig's glasses.  
"I'm afraid, I don't understand."

"Copy what I'm doing. It'll drive them crazy trying to figure it out.  
That way, we both can get our revenge on them for teasing you into vitals checking me." Johnny grinned.

Brice thought about it without moving, but then he suddenly fell into a convincing yawn. "Gee, I'm suddenly feeling a little tired.  
A nap sounds like a good idea. Who's bunk shall I take over?"

"Definitely Kelly's....Opposite Roy's directly across other side of the aisle." said Gage, rolling back over to bury his head under his pillow. "If this works, Roy'll be in here himself with a penlight and stethoscope to check on BOTH of us inside ten minutes. Sometimes, I think he's more gullible than me at stuff like this. Don't worry, Brice. We won't have the wool pulled over our eyes for much longer. All we have to do to is just go to sleep to get it all back."

Brice was soon snoring as loudly as Johnny from where he laid out neatly on his back with his hands folded over his chest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Roy and Johnny reading in the kitchen.

Photo: Johnny having a nightmare.

Photo: Craig Brice leaning over somebody by the squad.

Photo: The gang putzing in the kitchen on off time.

Photo: Station 51 in the dead of night.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Sunday, September 18, 2005 9:42 PM Subject : Double Indemnity..

The two paramedics never got a chance to see their counter move joking ruse bait, bitten. The tones went off before another half an hour had gone by.

Gage groaned as he threw on his night trousers, attached suspenders and boots. He was about to check aloud verbally about whether or not Craig Brice had dug his own out of consignment yet from Headquarters, when he realized that the door leading from the pitch black bunkroom was already swinging back and forth from the sandy haired fireman's rapidly disappearing departure. The natural level of irritation he normally felt around the man flared even greater.  
:: He's way ahead of me as usual again, d*mn it.:: Johnny thought as he squinted and rubbed bleary eyes as he jogged to the squad's passenger side fender. He opened the door and then stopped when he found the center seat between him and Roy empty. "Where's Brice?"

"He'll be riding with the engine until you two work out some kind of rotation about who gets to ride where when we respond to all of our rescue calls." DeSoto replied with a grin. He was enjoying his partner's major sleepies immensely. "You missed a really good late show and a whole lotta popcorn."

L.A.'s information broadcasted as the station klaxon tones completed their cycling. ##Station 51. Unknown type rescue at the gravel pit. 128 Live Oak Avenue, cross street North Western Avenue.  
128 Live Oak Avenue, cross street North Western Avenue. Time out,  
0256.##

Hank's ringing radio acknowledgement of the call and slamming fire vehicle doors finally jolted Johnny into full wakefulness."I'll live. All I need is a little fresh air. Maybe we'll get a high angle extrication so I can just hang out and get a lungful or two.. And speaking about passenger riding, why won't you be rotating on and off the engine with Craig Brice's new work schedule?"

"Seniority ranks, Johnny. But I wouldn't pull that argument for yourself in front of Cap if I were you. I bet if you look at the numbers, Craig's been around longer than you have with the department."

Gage was about to smart off a retort when the truth of that fact bit home.  
He tried to content himself with rolling down the squad window so the cool smoggy autumn night blew into his face. He set a grumpy elbow on the edge of the door frame after writing down their response address on a piece of paper.

"Sleep well?" Roy asked as the squad straightened out on the boulevard and sped for the nearby highway.

"How do ya think? Take one good look at these bloodshot eyes and just take a wild guess, pal. I hope Brice gets assigned a bunk down Cap's way,  
because he snores louder than Chet does when he's sleeping." Johnny snapped.

"Glad I've got a set of ear plugs under my pillow." DeSoto sighed, not reacting to his partner's grumbling. "I've told you a hundred times to go grab a pair from the pharmacy at Rampart along with the shoelaces you're always borrowing from me to replace the ones ya break all the time."

"I will. I will." Gage insisted self defensely. "Trust me. I'll go get a pair the next time we resupply at the hospital. How else am I gonna get any sleep any more?"

"You could always go a few rounds on the punching bag Stoker hung out in the yard." Roy said. "I'm sure that'll work out some of the restless overtired energy I'm seeing pouring out of ya tonight."

"Energy? You call this excess energy? I'm plum beat, Roy. That nap did absolutely nothing for me."

"Sorry, I couldn't tell. You hardly seem different from the usual."

"Very funny. Just drive and keep your thoughts to yourself, okay? And hang a right here on the off ramp. The Peck water conservation park's around the corner past those trees."

Roy smiled bigger and shook his head ruefully as Johnny's groggy attempts at hasty finger hair grooming finally panned out and he watched as Johnny belatedly remembered to shove on his fire helmet. "That sign we passed a couple of minutes ago beat ya to it. I'm way ahead of you."

"So's Brice it seems..." Johnny grumbled.

"What did you say?" Roy asked over the loud wail of the squad's sirens.

"Nothing!" Gage said, pulling on his chin strap. "Pretend I'm just sitting here looking pretty.."

Roy curbed another amused grin to spare Johnny a last shred of dignity. He never understood why broken sleep always brought out the worst in Johnny. ::Or in the rest of the gang for that matter. Maybe I got my immunity from it for having two kids to raise the last eight years or so.:: he decided.

Soon, they were there.

A construction foreman immediately ran up to Cap, taking Hank's immediate appearance and physical stature, as the one man in charge. "We're so glad you guys are here.." the man gasped under the night lights of the gravel quarry. "The problem's two fold. One of my workers is stuck and a child's trapped under one of our transfer conveyor belts in a car over there."

Cap understood the first part, but the second, took him aback."What? A child? In a car at the bottom of a gravel pit?"

"Yeah, the city gang buries cars in here all the time to try and hide em from the heat when they steal em. They think covering them up with gravel's the smartest idea in the world for their auto hustling ring.  
We try to thwart em with dog patrols and security guards, only the place's so big we can't watch over everywhere and we never usually find them all until the gang sneaks back in to collect em. We're guessing that this kid must've snuck in here playing earlier in the afternoon and got caught by the gang while they were hiding one. Twenty minutes ago, one of us heard shouting under the rock pile beneath this belt's fall/dump. Only our man got in trouble trying to find him.  
We're guessing that this kid's been locked up inside a trunk."

Cap held up his glove. "Get back to your victims' locations. Show us where." he ordered.

The anxious man, surrounded by a core of determined tool wielding workers,  
motioned quickly. "This way." And around the firemen, the pit crew suddenly split into two groups arrowing into the surrounding spot lit darkness.

Hank immediately dissembled. "Brice, Roy. Check out that child's situation.  
Chet, help em out. Johnny and the rest of you, come with me with all the tools you can carry and plenty of rope!"

"Don't bother. We've got plenty in use right now, mister." the foreman said hastily with a hint of anger. "Come on, come on! Marty can't wait much longer. He stopped screaming a couple of minutes ago."

"Ok..ok. Calm down a little. Getting excited's the last thing that'll help these people, ok?" Hank said gently. "Gang, you heard him. Skip the extrication gear. Let's move."

As Cap's group ran to the accident site, the sweating highly agitated foreman filled them in. "This belt became overloaded causing the electrical breaker to trip!" he shouted over the roar of chistles and jack hammers hastily being applied from an area just ahead of them in the heavy dusty gloom. "I shut down the entire line and Marty went to try and fix everything, like he always does, to clean away spilled material on the sides of the belt with a front end loader, only this time, he was assisted by Scotty, d*mn it all." The foreman bit his lip in sudden guilt and worry. "The kid's a truckdriver recently hired by the company. He didn't know what he was doing down there. Scotty told Marty that he was going to the breaker panel to turn the power back on after the jam was clear. He told everybody specifically to stand clear of it while he went to start up the belt again."

"I don't understand." said Cap. "I'm assuming Marty's your man who's trapped."

"Yes, yes. Here's what happened!" urged the foreman as the firemen strode deeper and deeper into the heart of the central gravel pile underneath the conveyor belt. "The electric panel for the conveyor belt's at a location out-of-sight of this far end. There's always a few minutes delay when someone does a restart because of this long walk over to the panel area. Only this time, Marty must have noticed that the discharge chute from the incoming belt was also clogged. We figured that he must have climbed up onto the belt to clean the secondary chute. When he did that, Scotty didn't know about it and turned the jam breaker back on. Marty fell down on the moving belt when it jerked to life again."

Cap started shaking his head in pure high level professional frustration as the tale unfolded unpleasantly. The foreman noticed. "You gotta understand. Marty's a very big man, in excess of 300 pounds. He couldn't easily get up or jump off the belt. Marty tried to yelled at Scotty, who ran alongside him, to shut off the belt from the other end, but Scotty wasn't familiar enough with the conveyor system and he couldn't find the emergency shut-off switch in time before--"

Johnny hastened to the point. "Ok, that's how it happened. Just tell us how Marty's hurt. That's the most important information right now."

The foreman wiped his face with a filthy rag from the back pocket of his overalls.  
"Scotty says Marty rode the belt for about 30 seconds, the entire length of the conveyor, before being pinned under an end angle iron motor bracing."

Gage winced. "Traumatic asphyxiation for sure, Cap."

Stoker ran back towards the engine. "I'll get the O2 tank and the intubation kit."

"And a full adult sized spine board with sand bags. " Cap added.

"Hurry!" Gage shouted after him. Soon, the wiry paramedic and the others reached the spot where Marty's gravel dusty leg protruded from a knot of belt cloth and metal. Already, gravel works employees were frantically digging with shovels, crowbars and brute force to try to free their coworker.  
"Has he moved?" Johnny shouted to them.

"No." one of them replied. "Not for a long time."

Gage, being the skinniest firefighter, took off his overcoat and helmet and crawled onto the halted gravel strewn belt into the feeder hole on top of Marty's partially pinned body and stomach. The whole way inside,  
he felt for signs of respiration with his gloves. He found none. "Not breathing. I'm going for his head!" his muffled shout echoed from out of the hole.

Cap snapped an order. "Marco, get in there with him. Help him any way you can."

Lopez peeled his coat and helmet, too. Hank stopped him with a touch on the leg. "Take this with you!" He passed off a pack of oral airways that he always carried in his turnout's jacket pocket. Then he pulled out his HT. "Roy, Brice. Our victim's spotted, not breathing. Gage and Marco are going in to aid him. Let me know the first second you know what you have out there with the minor. I'll call PD for you to get a court ward consent for treatment on him or her but note this.  
after your word only....that we have a survivor."

##10-4, Captain Stanley.## replied Brice over his radio.

There was grunting from the hole and Cap hung onto Gage's and Marco's boots and they worked deeper into the tiny space at the end of the gravel shunt feeder bin nearest Marty's head.  
"Easy. Easy.. Some of this loose stuff's working its way down."

"Ok, Cap. We almost have his head freed up!" Marco shouted in a strained voice.

Cap didn't like the tight quarters. He turned to the guilt ridden foreman,  
gaining assurances. "Do I have your absolute guarantee that that feeding circuit breaker's locked off?"

"You do, I locked the panel access cage up myself before I came running outside to meet you.. Oh my G*d, Marty. I got ya in so much trouble. I'm so sorry. I- I knew I should've been more firm with the boss about making the changes you pointed out around here.  
I- I know we should have had the starting and stopping of the belt possible from the same location."

Scotty, the new employee, was standing nearby and was thoroughly tear stained and crying. "That starting should have also included a warning alarm, Miller! And I should've been briefed on where all the switches were before you even put me to work on the line!"

"It's my fault.." mumbled the foreman. "It's.." he stumbled against a shaft piling. "Oh, my G*d. What have I done?"

"Don't you mean what DIDN'T you do?" snarled Scotty.

Cap ignored the pit men and began poring over his two men with Marty.  
"How is he?" he shouted into the gap along the belt where the two firemen were struggling to unbury Marty.

There was a long delay inside the hole. Then Johnny's voice came over the HT. Two short words. ##Code F.##

Cap sighed and slammed both gloves against the side of the inert gravel belt and he lifted his head to fight down a crush of emotional pain.

The foreman got back onto his feet. "Code F? Wh-what's a code F? I-is that some kind of rescue code?" he asked hopefully. "If there's anything I can do for Marty, just a---"

Scotty interrupted in a rage and a new flood of tears. "That's F for fatality Miller. Marty's dead! Remember that for the rest of your pathetic life. A good man died today because of your unwillingness to confront your boss, and his death is entirely ..your ...fault. I sure hope someday you can learn to live with this, cause I know I sure won't. Not ever....."  
he glared softly dangerous. "I quit right after I talk one to one with the cops.  
There was no excuse for this happening, Miller. None. I've never seen such a shoddy excuse for a twenty four hour gravel operation in all my working days."

Hank and the others broke out of their listening shock between the two gravel works men and fell into immediate action. Cap grabbed first Gage's legs and then Marco's to hasten their progress off the belt. Then he yelled at Stoker over radio to get the resuscitation and spinal gear out to DeSoto and Brice instead. Cap added one thing more. "Gage, leave your clothes shears on his chest so the MSHA investigators know that we got in there first for a victim's vitals check. Disturb absolutely nothing else getting back out here, guys. Remember everything you did in there in close detail and what you touched." he said in barely controlled fury.

Gage and Marco soon fled for the site of Brice and Roy's situation with Cap running close behind them.

They found...

-------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap speaking with a helmeted construction worker.

Photo: A gravel works emergency stop panel.

Photo: Two workers digging in a very large deep hole.

Photo: A working conveyor at the bottom of a gravel pile.

Photo: A dirt buried car.

Photo: Brice, Roy and Johnny in turnout gear, getting ready for a rescue operation.

*  
From : Champagne Scott Sent : Wednesday, September 21, 2005 1:11 PM Subject : Saved From a Tomb...

...them easily under the gravel pit's night spotlights three minutes later.

Roy didn't even ask why his partner and Marco had returned so quickly from the conveyor belt site. He already knew.

Brice was directing gravel workers and Chet on where to dig to try and locate landmarks on the buried car so that they could reach a window or even better, the rear trunk compartment.

But it was like shoveling inside of a sand funnel. As fast as gravel was removed, more slid in immediately to take its place back into any hole made by the workers.

Kelly shouted. "We got problems, Cap! This pea gravel's like water. We can't make any headway!"

Hank jogged to where Roy and Brice were kneeling on top of the hood of the buried stolen automobile. "Wanna cut into the car from up there?"

"I don't think that'll be a good idea, Captain Stanley." said Craig Brice. "The interior'd only get buried as well. If we can get by with a visual looking inside, that'll be good enough to determine where the child might be trapped."

Hank nodded in agreement. "And I'm sure the car's owner would appreciate minimal damage as well." He rubbed his lip. "How about a front end loader, digging a channel to the trunk? The foreman mentioned they use one of those a lot to find these cars when they encounter them."

"Bring it on in, Cap. And hurry. We don't know how long our child's been in these low air conditions like this." Roy fretted.

Brice looked up from lying on his stomach. He had peered into a window from its top edge, looking upside down with a flashlight. "The car's empty! I'm only seeing beer cans, spent shotgun shells, and I'm smelling a whole lot of alcohol in here."

"What nice car crooks, gang. Don't ya love it?" snapped Johnny. "Not only do they hide what they steal from the police, they mess it up, and then endanger kidnapped small children while going about their business as usual. Makes you wanna--"

"Easy, partner." said Roy. "First thing's first. I promise I'll let you get into a few faces once the cops find them later on. Right now let's just concentrate on undoing some of the mischief by rescuing that kid first." Then he froze in place. "Shhh.. I think I hear something." he said, angling his helmeted head.

But then the front end loader started approaching, and drowned out all chance of anyone hearing any subtle noises.

Gage looked up for the heavy equipment driver eagerly. "Over here! Over here! Nice and easy.."

Brice scrambled out of the way of the work crews and shouted.  
"I'll call Rampart and let them know we almost have a victim. Sir,  
making that phone call now for court authorized treatment might be prudent."

Hank nodded, only slightly raising his eyebrows at Craig's formal demeanor, and jogged over to the squad's cab for a quiet place to call L.A. and the police department.

Johnny and the others watched as the front end loader slowly bit into the flowing rivers of gravel. Its appetite soon won a solid dirt path leading right up to the very rear of the gang buried car.

Stoker went running, "I'll get lines from the engine. We can pull it out using them tied around our bumper and their loader's, in reverse gear!"

"Make it happen!" Hank agreed, missing nothing from where he sat.

Marco yelled. "I'll get a crowbar!"

Chet said, "I'll get the gear laid out." And he fell to work spreading a yellow plastic treatment sheet onto the damp dirt of the roadway. He quickly placed the resuscitator, defibrillator,  
trauma and drug boxes out with their lids open.

Cap finished making his call to L.A. and to the emergency court system and he told his men good news. "Gage, DeSoto, Brice! Do what you have to do. That child's now under federal court authority for being a kidnap victim. All you need now are doctor's orders.."

"Thanks, Cap." said DeSoto. "Let's hope we won't need to do much."

The firemen hurried to secure two fast rope lines to the Ward and the front end loader once it had completed clearing away what gravel it could from the back end of the stolen car.

"Ok,, ok.. ease them back, slowly!" said Cap to Stoker and Marco, who had joined the gravel vehicle's driver with an HT so they could hear Cap's instructions the same time Stoker did.

##10-4." they both replied.

"Easy... easy..." said Cap as he watched the tension in the tug ropes increase, and finally grow taut. Soon, the intact car groaned, shifting under its deep cocoon of heavy gravel with ear piercing nails on chalkboard squeals as raw rock pellets scratched into the chassis relentlessly.

Everyone covered their ears at the sounds.

"Ooo, there's goes the paint job." Chet shivered as he opened a second sheet pack into thirds on top of a backboard in case they needed spinal care on the child.

Brice smiled from where he was hailing Rampart. "A problem easily remedied. Just picture what the owner of this car would have thought if we had decided to flower petal open the roof to saw through the back passenger seat and frame, looking for this minor."

"You got a point there." said Kelly, grinning. But then his grin fell away when he saw Cap raise his glove in a halting gesture. He shot to his feet quickly. "Here we go.." he said, grabbing an iron bar with which to help Lopez jimmy the trunk release.

Brice watched his crewmates as he talked with Dixie McCall. "Rampart, we're a minute away from extricating a child of unknown age from an automobile trunk that was found buried under five or six feet of loose gravel. Please stand by until we free our victim. And yes, we have official court permission to render any treatment authorized by you."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

::Well, if that isn't clairvoyance, I don't know what is.:: thought Dixie when Brice's last statement anticipated her next question neatly.  
##10-4, Squad 51. We're standing by.## replied Dixie when she saw Joe Early making his way over to the base station at her urgent wave.

The frosty haired nurse readied a note pad and set the record button on pause. Joe entered the glass alcove, read the basic information Dixie handed to him, and then they both began to wait restlessly.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trunk cracked open and its springs shot the rear hood up with alacrity. A wave of hot, fetid sour air met the firemen's noses in the darkness. But an odor wasn't about to stop them in the slightest.  
Gage threw aside loose objects that the child had kicked around in his struggles and peered down under Roy's flashlight beam as he felt for a neck pulse. "He's alive. But it looks like all this rock did absolutely nothing to protect him from daytime heating. He's got all his clothes torn off."

Chet quickly set a resuscitator mask of pure oxygen over the boy's face as soon as the two paramedics had him carefully turned onto his back, while he still lay in the trunk. "Is he breathing ok on his own?"

"Help him a bit. It's irregular." replied Gage. "Go 20 a minute, and someone tell Stoker to rig a reel line! We've got to get his high temperature down with a hose as soon as he's been spine immobilized! Roy, I'm seeing blunt force bruising here. His left eye's orbit, right side rib cage and right thigh so far. And he's got a broken index finger on his left hand."

Kelly tried not to seethe. "He's been beaten up, too?"

"Looks that way." said Roy, holding the heatstroked boy's head still until Johnny could get a pediatric cervical collar around the child's neck. The tall quiet paramedic was ready to kill in his eyes but his hands remained firmly gentle as they moved the boy onto a long board and strapped him in tightly with sandbags and belts.

Chet was a tick with the demand valve, sticking to the child's face and minding his airway aggressively while he delivered light, fast breaths. "No problems here, Johnny. O2's going in easy."

"Keep them light until I listen to his chest a little better. We've got to rule out traumatic chest injury." Gage told him.

Mike Stoker was ready with cold water and he stood close by for the word to begin cooling measures by the time the three firemen carried the boy over to all the medical gear and Chet's treatment tarp.

"Start with his legs, arms and abdomen only, Stoker. A very light wash.  
We don't want to chill him too fast here." said Roy. "If you see him start to shiver, stop immediately and get him snuggly wrapped up.  
Keep an eye out for any active blood flow into your water. We haven't checked him out very well yet for other injuries past these bruises and that hand."

Mike Stoker began his bathing with just an inch wide trickle from the end of the red hose's nozzle. "Got it." said the engineer softly. "Is he resisting Chet's vents yet?" he asked DeSoto.  
"No." said Roy with a worried frown. "We'll try to change that with some I.V. epinephrine real soon. Craig.." he said, wiggling fingers for the biophone receiver.

Brice handed it over and then got busy with Roy's stethoscope on assessing the flushed red boy's lung sounds.

DeSoto never took his eyes off the boy while he spoke with Dr. Early. "Rampart, this is Rescue 5-1."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe Early flicked the recording machine off pause and said, "Unit calling in, please repeat."

##Rampart, this is Squad 51.##

"Go ahead on your pediatric suffocation victim, 51. I've been updated."

##Rampart we have a male approximately four to five years of age.  
Unconscious and unresponsive, being ventilated on 100% O2. He's markedly overheated with blunt force trauma in evidence. Looks like a beating. I'll cover exactly what areas are involved after initial vital signs.  
BP is 150/102, pulse is weak and rapid at 134, breaths unassisted, were at eight and very irregular. Our victim is currently undergoing a cold water washdown over his extremities and abdomen to allow us to start to get a handle on a very high body temperature.##

"What is it, 51?"

##Stand by, Rampart. We've got to work around some spinal precautions to ascertain that.##

"10-4. Let me know what you find. Has your victim shown any indication of prior seizure activity?"

##None, Rampart. No signs of incontinence or unequal pupillary reaction are apparent.##

"Ok, 51. Start him on an I.V. of..........

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Brice and Roy working by the squad with the drugbox.

Photo: A front end loader digging away at a cliffside.

Photo: A car's trunk, opened and full of junk.

Photo: Rescuers carrying a stripped boy away from danger.

Photo: A child getting ventilated by demand valve by the gang.

Photo: Dr. Joe Early listening to a transmission wearing glasses.

Photo: Roy frowning in his helmet at night.

Photo: Marco and Chet in full rescue gear, waiting for orders.

*  
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 13:25:04 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jeff Seltun" Subject: The Saving Grace of Professionalism..

....Lactated Ringer's at TKO and another of 50% dextrose in water. Protect his airway judiciously, 51. There's a strong possibility of respiratory alkalosis developing from your active ventilations. They might bring on secondary hypokalemia. Are there any signs of deep tendon reflexes?## Joe asked.

Brice checked, running a blunt scissors point up both the boy's bare feet. He also pinched the skin sharply behind both the boy's knees while holding them bent and upright. Not one twitch manifested. Craig shook his head.

DeSoto shared that news. "Negative, Rampart."

##Ok, go ahead and intubate him with an EOA. Sounds like he's already largely in a coma from his exposure. What's his core temperature reading?##

Johnny took out the thermometer probe from the child's rectum and read it under penlight. "41."

"It's at 41 c, doc." Roy told Dr. Early, biting his lower lip.

##Continue his cooling measures aggressively, 51. Halt all irrigation when his body temperature reaches 39 c and let it drop no lower. I want an EKG as soon as possible. If he develops seizure activity,  
use a benzodiazepine variant such as Ativan 0.1 mg/kg I.V. If hypotension sets in refractory to cooling and initial fluid boluses, initiate a Dopamine drip and titrate to maintain a systolic BP greater than 90 mmhg. Once you've sent me a strip, continue monitoring vitals and maintain his full 02 support. Bring him in as soon as possible.##

Roy confirmed his orders. "10-4, Rampart. Point one mg's Ativan I.V. on posturing, a dopamine drip to raise any developing basement BP to 90, and an EOA. Stand by for his EKG, lead two. I estimate our ETA at twelve minutes."

##Standing by, 51.##

Johnny was way ahead of Joe Early. He already had the still child's chest dried and patched in and it was only moments before he flicked on the datascope monitor and linked it into the biophone.

Roy spoke once more into the phone. "Transmitting EKG, Rampart."

##10-4.##

Gage, Brice, DeSoto and Kelly all leaned into the screen to read its tachy signature. Johnny let out a worried sigh. "Frequent PAC's and look at this. Doctor Early called it right on the money. He's very low on electrolytes."

DeSoto picked up the receiver. "Rampart, we are reading marked flat T waves with prolonged QTs and prominent U waves on a V tach of 140 with PAC's. There is possible evidence of Cor pulmonale manifestation."

##I concur, 51. Bolus in 100 cc's of that Lactated Ringer's. Most likely the heat's damaged his lung tissue, causing atelectasis and that backup into his right descending pulmonary artery. That's probably why we are seeing a poor breathing effort and the Cor pulmonale. It is paramount, 51, if he crashes, that you avoid using sodium bicarbonate on any defibrillation.  
He's low enough on potassium or magnesium as it is. Use Dobutamine 10 mcg/kg/min IV infusion for circulatory support with your first stacking dose of epinephrine should any be needed.##

Roy re-outlined the doctor's treatment and plan if the boy suffered a cardiac arrest. Then he added, "Rampart, we've examined all exposed surface areas on our victim. He's got bruising of the left orbit of his eye, right lateral ribcage, and on the skin over his right thigh with no evidence of obvious fractures except for a midshaft bone break on his left index finger. Also, we've found that he's slightly guarding the lower left hand quadrant of his abdomen."

##Might be splenic involvement. I'll have a surgeon standing by.##

"10-4, Rampart." Roy practically threw down the biophone into its case in his eagerness to get the boy intubated and moving out.

Gage re-read the thermometer again, taking it from in between the boy's frogged legs where he lay in his moistened shock sheets and he held up his hand. "Ok, Stoker, that's good." he said, and he motioned for the engineer to take away the cold water stream.

Roy took a small ambu bag from Chet's hand and fastened it to the end of the boy's esophageal airway once he was through inserting it.  
He gave it a few short squeezes while Craig checked the tube's placement.  
"Ok, Chet. Take this over again." he said in a hoarse whisper.

Brice gave a curt nod. "It's positioned correctly, DeSoto. ...Ready?" he asked Gage and the others who were bundling up the boy's sheets, I.V. tubing and EKG monitor wires away from the pooled water running around his body.

He got all nods around the circle of quiet firefighters.

The heatstroked young boy's spine board was lifted and laid straight onto a half height raised ambulance gurney, and soon, they started on their way to the hospital. Marco quickly followed behind them in the rescue squad, adding his red lights and siren to the ambulance's.

The foreman sighed as Cap stepped away from the Cadillac ambulance doors that he had just double slapped. "I hope he makes it, mister. Cause if he doesn't, then Marty died for nothing and my losing my job over him will just be another tragedy this company'll bear quietly in the private sector..."

Hank just stared at him, and displayed absolutely no sympathy.  
"Your poor man didn't have to die at all today! Haven't you gotten that fact in through that thick hard hat of yours yet?! This whole rescuing situation was all ....completely... and utterly.....preventable!"

"I didn't put that car into the gravel pile! That stupid city gang did!" said the foreman, defensive and trembling. "Why are you all looking at me like I was the one who kicked that kid around?"

Scotty, rendered angrily mute, turned his back as he began talking to the police officer newly arrived on scene.

Cap just jerked his head for the other firemen to pick up all the medical waste wrappers, labels and needle covers without saying another word.

He headed off to give out a station's availability ETA to L.A. over the engine cab's chatter filled radio and soon, they were free of the sad gravel works company, ...forever.

-  
Photo: Roy on a biophone, surrounded by rock.

Photo: Firemen fighting to save a nonbreather with a construction worker.

Photo: Roy bagging a victim in a cadillac ambulance.

Photo: Cap grimacing in barely caged rage.

Photo: A cadillac ambulance driving away.

Photo: Gage and DeSoto fighting to maintain an EOA in ambulance.

*  
From : crash200225 Sent : Saturday, September 24, 2005 4:35 AM Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Waiting

Marco backed the squad in next to the ambulance just as the boy was being unloaded. The intense look on both of the paramedics' faces spoke volumes. The child's condition must have deteriorated during transport. As he followed the gurney through the emergency room outer doors, Marco heard the sound of distant thunder. He turned back to the squad and rolled up the windows. There was no way of knowing how long they would be there.

Not seeing Roy or Johnny in the hallway, Marco found a seat in the nearly empty waiting room. Having left his helmet in the squad, he ran his hands through his hair, then over his face.

The rescue had effected him more than the others knew. His close friend had died in an 'industrial accident' several months earlier. Though the circumstances were vastly different, the cause was the same. Incomplete training and stupidity on the part of the supervisor. He hadn't told his crewmates about it, not that they wouldn't understand. He knew his friends would try to console him, but he didn't want that. The rage he still felt drown out the sorrow that would eventually surface. He just wasn't ready to face it, not yet. When he was, he knew they would all be there for him.

Closing his eyes, an image of the child came to Marco and his barely controlled anger threatened to overwhelm him. He thought about who could do something so horrible to a little child, just a baby really. He took a deep breath and let his thoughts drift back to his friend.

-  
"Marco," Roy said for the third time, "Are you all right?"

He had become lost in his memories and had not heard Roy calling his name. "Yes, just tired. How is the boy?"

"Dr. Early stabilized him. He's on the way to surgery now. Johnny is getting supplies. He won't be much longer." Roy knew they were all shaken by the rescue, but now was not the time to dwell on it. It was a kind of unwritten rule not to mention the bad runs for awhile afterwards. They would talk about it at some point, but not now.

Five minutes later, the three men were on the way back to the station. Johnny seemed to fall asleep before they had left the ambulance bay, head against the window. Marco was in the center seat and asked Roy, "You sure he's not sick or something? He's usually 'Mr. Can't-Sit-Still'".

"He was okay in the ambulance and at Rampart. Like he said, he's bushed. Nothing some sleep won't fix." Roy answered with more confidence than he felt. He knew how his partner could be sometimes.

"What about Brice? He went to check on Johnny and fell asleep himself. Maybe there is something going around." Marco reminded him.

Roy thought about it for a few moments before saying, "I guess it wouldn't hurt to check them both out when we get back."

Neither man saw the smirk on Johnny's face. He hadn't quite gone to sleep, but before he knew it, Marco was shaking him. They had returned to the station and Roy had the passenger door open. He was taking Johnny's pulse.

"Aw, Roy, Marco, leave me 'lone. Tired is all. Lemme sleep." he grumbled.

Roy shook his head and sighed. "We just thought you might want to sleep in your bunk instead of the squad."

"Huh?" Johnny looked around before stumbling out of the squad and straight to the sleeping quarters. He didn't bother to strip down to his t-shirt and boxers. He dove onto his bunk and, for the second time that night, didn't remember his head hitting the pillow.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From : Roxy Dee Sent : Saturday, September 24, 2005 8:57 PM Subject : The Haunted Chat~~

Johnny heard a motion in the darkness in the bunk room where he lay. ::That's Cap. Is he restless! And Marco's none too relaxed either.:: Gage thought as he blinked sleepers away. His roving eyes studied the ceiling and flicked to the window, which was still glowing street light blue.  
::Dawn's nowhere near yet.::

The dark haired paramedic rolled over to eye his partner, Roy,  
snoring lightly nearby on the next bunk over. Immediately, his overlarge eyes spied an HT on standby lying on the table between them ::Got you! :: Johnny grinned quietly. ::You finally went for the tired act Brice and I crafted hook line and sinker if you have a radio in here with ya.::

Trying not to laugh aloud, he glanced over to Brice's bulk on the bed kitty corner from him next to Chet. Craig was quiet,  
and his glasses were off. ::He must have continued the joke after I "staggered" in here if Roy was concerned enough to keep close communication cover in the bunk room after checking up on me. Wish I had been awake when he finally came in for me. Oh, well. Maybe Chet was there watching him. I can get the play by play about what happened during breakfast when it's light out.::

Contented with the progress of his mother hen fostering joke,  
Gage flipped back over onto his back and closed his eyes in a sigh and soon returned to a much needed slumber.

-  
Ten minutes later, Captain Stanley flipped back his sheets, pulled on his suspendered pants, and shuffled into the bathroom on his boots. Hank was shocked to find that his face was covered in a sheen of fine sweat in the mirror. Slowly, he realized that his heart was still pounding in his chest. ::Why am I still mad? We're well done with it!:: he thought about the dead man at the gravel works. The nightmare from which he had just awakened was still playing shadows of strong emotion behind his eyes.

A commotion made him quickly turn on a sink flow in a pretend face wash to hide his damp skin.

It was Marco, just as unsleepy and concealing the fact that he was actually disturbed. "Hey, Cap. Can't sleep?" Lopez asked him as he startled at finding him up.

"Just thirsty I guess." Cap sighed, hiding the reason why his sleep had been broken. "I'm headed into the kitchen for some warm milk. Uh,... want me to fix ya some? Stoker told me we gotta finish up that gallon before it goes bad on us tomorrow afternoon."

Instead of shaking his head, Marco nodded yes. "I think I need all the comfort I can get after tonight's run." the hispanic firefighter finally admitted.

"Oh?" Cap startled.  
He rubbed a tightness in his chest that was coming oddly with his boosted heartrate in a pretend scratch through his t-shirt. "Wanna talk about it?"

Marco eyed him with a haunted look and his eyes flickered over the hand Cap was using to grip his shirt's front in an attempt to silence the hammering under his ribs. That grip, matched his own, on his own shirt, that was trying to do the same thing. "Yeah.." he said softly, meeting his eyes. "I ..think I need to, Cap... And... I think you need to, too."

Hank stopped drying his face in a towel with his free hand and ended his charade of false calm. In a rush, whispering confidentially, Cap let loose. "Oh, it was awful, wasn't it? I-I- I really think that I wanted to kill that foreman, Marco. With my bare hands. And I've never lost my cool on a rescue like that before. Not ever. Not even half mentally! So why did I feel something like that tonight? I still feel plenty angry about it now. And it's two hours later!"

Marco surprised him by taking Hank's sudden deep admission in stride.  
Lopez waved it away with a dismissive hand and a tiny smile.  
He touched Cap's arm, and started leading him to the more private space offered by the still warm kitchen and rec room. "Believe me, I understand completely, Cap. I just lost a good friend a few weeks ago due to circumstances alot like those that killed our park gravel worker. I've been feeling a little trapped myself lately over him."

Captain Stanley's eyes radiated instant sympathy and caring. "I'm so sorry, pal. Abou-- about him." he said as they both padded silently past the quiescent engine and squad in the bay and then through the kitchen's swing door.

"It's ok. I....think I'll get over it. Only I haven't figured out how yet."  
Marco said, looking shell shocked and vaguely numb as they both moved over towards the refrigerator and the stove after squinting painfully when the autolights came on.

"Think we should call a CISM counselor for a late night session?" Hank asked frankly, opening up uncharacteristically to his troubled coworker.  
"I know it's been a while since we as a shift, have called for one."

"Nah, having a shrink come to the station would only wake the others. And embarrass us further after they nose around a little for the reason why. Maybe we could...just have it out just between the two of us, and see if that'll do any good before we try anything drastic enough like calling for one of them." he said, mincing a salt shaker around pointlessly on the eating table.

Captain Stanley blinked, his back still to Marco, as he got out two empty glasses for their drinks. Hank coughed, trying to relieve the tightness he still felt in his jaw. The nausea which always came with any stress he dealt with began to rise and it finally made him speak as he busied himself with the crumpled milk carton marked "Use Now." and a sauce pan over a low gas flame on the stove. So he finally gushed, wide open.

Cap turned around, met Marco eye to eye, and opened his mouth. "Oh, man. I was completely stunned over feeling the way I did in front of that foreman. Blind rage, rising grief. A whole gauntlet of emotions. I- I didn't actually know what to do with myself after we found out that our first victim had been killed because of sheer lame brained stupidity and total inaction. I've seen people die for dumb reasons in the past as a captain, but nothing like--" he choked off, slamming down a lump that threatened to make his eyes water.

"This was simply the last straw for you, Cap, and very nearly mine."  
Lopez said very quietly. Tears flowed unabashed down his face as he drank the heated milk Hank finally handed out to him. "And we've got to figure how get it all out somehow, before it makes us both too hobbled to work well enough to save those we can still do something about."

Cap found he couldn't release his grief. Not yet. Not even a half an hour later when Marco and he finally returned back to the sanctity of their beds and the warm roughness of their beige woolen blankets.

Trying to ignore the weight of stress still bearing down heavily on his chest, Cap let go of himself into an unrestful sleep.

In the blackness across the room, Craig Brice watched them both,  
thoughtfully analytical and soon, privately worried.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Johnny, lying in bed in the dark.

Photo: Cap and Marco, looking unhappy on a rescue scene.

Photo: Cap closeup, looking stressed.

Photo: Marco leaning against the kitchen sink, thoughtful.

Photo: Cap trying to rest in bed.

Photo: Craig Brice, looking down.

*  
From: "Monster Moofie" Date: Sat Sep 24, 2005 7:01 pm Subject: Monday morning breakfast

Meanwhile, back at Rampart the night shift had just ended. Dixie had called Kel Sunday night and made arrangements for him to come meet her and Joe for breakfast. Dix hurried and changed out of her uniform and met Joe at the front desk.

Waving to Mike Morton, Joe and Dix headed out and drove to the diner.

Having enjoyed a peaceful night, Kel waved to them with a smile. He held up the pot of coffee as they approached. "I secured sustenance for you two!" he said with a grin. "How did the night shift go?"

Joe sighed happily as he grabbed the cup of coffee Kel poured him. "It was fairly uneventful for once. 51's brought in a kid who had been found trapped in a gravel quarry. He was in pretty rough shape when they brought him in but it looks like he will be fine."

"I had a few minutes to talk with Johnny Gage while he was gathering supplies following the rescue. Would you believe they have added Craig Brice to 51's A shift?" Dixie queried Kel.

"You're kidding me, Dix!" Kel said in disbelief.

"Nope, she sure isn't, Kel." Joe responded.

Dixie hurried to explain further, "The really funny thing is that apparently the rest of the guys, including Roy, tried to pull a joke on Johnny and Craig. Johnny told me he was feeling the change of season and just in a sleepy mood so he went to bed early last night instead of staying up for movies and popcorn. The rest of the guys sent Brice in after midnight to check on Johnny. Once he realized what was going on, Johnny convinced Brice to set up a joke on the guys by crawling in Chet's bed and joining Johnny in slumber.  
Unfortunately, they got the call out before it worked."

Kel laughed hearing the firehouse antics. "Johnny and Brice joining together to pull a joke?! That is certainly funny! It was hard enough when we saw Brice working with DeSoto when Johnny was out because of the hit and run. I have a hard time imagining Brice and Gage working together, let alone planning something together! Those two are like a cat and its prey."

Still laughing at the idea of this unlikely pair, the three friends finished their breakfast. After paying their bill they headed out to their cars. About to go their separate ways, they noticed the white land rover that pulled into the parking lot. It parked and they saw Johnny get out. Johnny approached them with a grin.

"Hey Docs, Dix! You are just who we wanted to see." Johnny said.

"We?" Joe asked Johnny. "I don't see anyone with you."

Johnny grinned and pointed. Unnoticed, Craig Brice had come in from the other direction.

"Dr. Brackett, Dr. Early, Miss McCall." Craig greeted them.

The Rampart staff, surprised, greeted him.

"You are right, John. They would be the perfect people to help us pull off this joke. I know all three of you are planning on attending the upcoming fireman's fall harvest." Craig said referring to the upcoming fund raiser, "A Safe Alternative For Kids", planned for October 31st.

Shocked, the trio could only reply.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: "patti *mimic* " Date: Sun Sep 25, 2005 6:09 pm Subject: The Final Baiting..

Inwardly, Dixie tried not to gawk when she heard Craig Brice of all people, refer to Johnny Gage by his first name. But outwardly, she smiled, really big. "Johnny, just what the heck are you and Craig up to now?" she asked first, being the most eager to get social fast enough to satisfy a deepening,  
healthy curiosity.

Joe Early blinked, and nudged Dixie, leaning into her ear so she would be the only one who heard him. He disguised his comment as a hug and a cheek smooch for her paying his part of the diner bill. "I can't believe you mentioned the two of them inside the same sentence." he murmured.

Dixie elbowed him subtly back to hush up.

Oblivious, Gage went on eagerly. "Oh, nothing much. We're just gonna finish what we both started two years ago."

Brackett, fairly familiar with most of the firehouse pranks that usually occurred associated by station number, took a crack at it. "Would this have anything to do with the publicity grudge you pretended to have whenever Brice was mentioned in the newspapers?"

Dixie and Joe Early had to scrape their jaws off of the pavement when they heard that comment escape Kel's lips.

Craig Brice pushed his glasses up onto his nose. "It sure does, doctor.." looking pleased but a little self conscious at the same time. He seemed to Dixie a little like Roy just then.

"Yeah.." bubbled Johnny. "You see,... the guys think that I still hate him on a professional level. I know that because Cap asked me that very question indirectly on my last departmental review, about whether or not I still harbored some ill will and jealousy towards Brice, during my formal/informal psych test."

"The way Mr. Gage behaved concerning me, was pure bunk." Brice smirked in a tiny grin. "Uh, no pun intended, Johnny."

"None taken.." Johnny rocked back on his heels in a mutual self congratulatory stance.

The Rampart three just stared in incomprehension at the firehouse two.

Johnny explained. "We're trying to make the others think that we're both laid up in a minor fashion somehow physically and we've been using the bunkroom as the setting, doc, to bait the guys." Gage told Brackett, who was starting to grin as he learned of just the smallest twist of shamming currently developing at 51's.

Kel's eyes twinkled, as Joe and Dixie finally understood the ramifications.

Joe's finger began pointing. "Oh, so I see. You acted irritated about anything to do with Brice here two years ago, just to set up a larger bait of a broken wing act with both of you, tricking them, now." Early guessed.

"You're on the right track, doc. Only it doesn't stop there." Johnny crowed. "We need to take things up to a new level now that the guys are teetering off balance. We need to cap it all with the final blow. And that's why we stopped to visit when we saw the three of ya. To get ya to deliver the coup de grace on this third phase of ours. The broken wing bunk acting is just to throw the rest of the gang off of our true intentions.  
We're starting to be the lures to lead the hounds off the fox trail."

Dixie started to frown. "Oh, boy. Do I even want to learn what you two are cooking up now?"

"Yes."  
"Yes." chorused Joe and Kel at the same time.

The two doctors looked at each other and started chuckling.

"All right, so here's what we want you to do. But it's important to spring this during the parade REHEARSAL for that fund raiser of yours Dixie... That event, uh,..".A Safer..." Gage began.

"...Alternative For Kids"..that I planned on the 31st." Dixie continued.  
"All right, I'll bite. What do you want us to do? And I'll go through with this as long as nobody gets hurt or embarrassed too badly."

"Oh, they won't, Miss McCall." said Craig. "Their uniforms won't even get wet."

Gage and Brice fell into a paroxysm of laughter at the famous reference to the Phantom water can legacy that had ensued between Chet Kelly and Johnny the year before and they nearly fell over themselves trying to contain their giggling.

"Here. You're gonna need this. Follow the instructions to the letter on the very day, ok?" Gage said when they had regained their ability to breathe.

Kel eagerly snatched the paper that Craig held out to the three of them at Johnny's words.

Dixie's eyes got real big and very fearful. "I don't want to read it.."

"That's ok, Joe and I will." Brackett shrugged. " You can decide if you want in after your gotta-know nose festers for a while. Come on, Joe. Let's read this and go over it before the three of us have to go back for our overtime at the hospital." and the two of them headed back to the side of the parking lot where their two cars waited.

Dixie's mouth flopped open and her hands took positions on either side of her hips. But just as quickly, her eyes lit up. "Is it a good one?"

"The best..." Gage winked at her. But it was genuine, without the slightest hint of deception.

And that, finally convinced her.  
"Ok,.. I'm gonna go catch up to Joe and Kel. But what, uh, what ARE you guys doing here this time of the morning? Besides, getting us involved in your latest practical joke war. I thought you both had a 48/96 going on."

Brice pushed his glasses up onto his face a little higher. "We are working a two days on/four days off rotation. Uh, hospital staff, especially upper level medical staff, might be able to afford the prices in there...." he said, pointing to the posh diner Kel, Dixie and Joe had just breakfasted inside of. "...but us poor firemen, are after the true cuisine.." he winked amicably. His other hand pointed to the far end of the lot. At Davey's Diner, the tiny run down one, located on the corner.

Dixie made a face. "You're going to eat chili dogs? Now?"

"We were busy last night.." Johnny shrugged. "We need comfort food.  
And Brice tells me that Marco and Cap probably need it more than the rest of us."

Nurse McCall's expression softened in sorrow. "Bad call yesterday?"  
she asked remembering the child that Joe Early had spoken of.

"Not about him." Gage said, studying the ground, suddenly serious. "It was about a man we couldn't help at the same scene. Craig says the loss's taking physical lumps out of Marco and Captain Stanley in a ...how exactly did you put it?...in a detrimental way."

"Yes, that is the description I utilized." Craig agreed.

"...so we're doing the friends first thing by offering food and being there without prying, until they decide to dump onto us what they're feeling." Johnny smiled, wanly uncertain.

Dixie rocked forward on her nursing shoes and kissed him full on the cheek. "That's so .." her eyes watered. "...sweet, you guys. Let me know how they're doing, ok?"

"We will.." Brice promised.

A brash car honk caught all of their attentions. Dixie whirled.  
"Oh! Kel's leaving. I've got to go. We came together..."

"So are you?" Johnny pressed, with a cat eating grin.

Dixie smacked him with her purse as she pulled out her head scarf.  
"If you must know..." she started to grin. But then her head didn't move in an up or down nod, or with a shake in the negative, about a romantic relationship, in the slightest.

She simply, walked off, with quiet dignity, tying the scarf around her elegant head.

Gage blustered. "Oh, come on, Dixie. That's not fair..!" he hollered after her. "We tell ya the nitty gritty about all our relationships... Just look at what you found out about Craig and me today with this joking thing!"

But the nurse only slid into Brackett's convertible and waved jauntily as the three of them departed in their two cars.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From : Cory Anda Sent : Tuesday, September 27, 2005 4:55 AM Subject : Pomp and Circumstance..

Johnny Gage was still smiling when he and Craig Brice climbed back into his land rover for their trip back to the station. "Don't spill those, Craig, or we'll have spent our four dollars for nothing."

"I can honestly say that I've never wasted anything meant for a humanitarian cause." Craig sniffed ruefully, sitting ramrod straight in his seat with the cardboard carton holding the seven chili dogs in his lap.

"I believe you. But usually things that ya want really bad to happen, have a tendency to blow up into your face, Craig.  
And I'm one of the most well known people around, department wide, to suffer frequently from that effect. Let's not tempt fate, all right?"Johnny wasn't convinced that his newly retuned old shocks would be merciful or not so he reached over and belted Brice in so the paramedic didn't have to let go of any of the food he was cradling. "Let me fasten this for ya. Hold still. Ok, got it."

"Are you talking about the jinx gene?" Craig asked seriously.

"Jinx g--? Oh, you mean my klutz gene, the one that usually fires up and causes me to get sick or hurt all the time whether I want it to, or not?" Johnny said, starting up his ignition.

"You know that is a complete fallacy." Brice said no nonsense.  
"Anyone can make bad things happen for themselves just by thinking about it too much..." he said checking out the intersection ahead of them. "Road's clear my side. Go ahead and blow through this yellow light, our food's already dropped by about ten degrees Fahrenheit." he declared.

Johnny stepped on the gas instantly, causing both of them to flatten against the back window of the rover.

Brice blinked, glancing over at his latest, shared, paramedic partner.  
"That exact mind set used to trip me up all the time until I decided that the effect wasn't going to rule me anymore." he said. "For the first two years I was with the fire department, I was... exactly... like you for wracking up a lot of injured days."

"Really?" Gage gaped. He found that he had a hard time concentrating on driving. "Well, h- how did you manage to get over it? I've been wracking my brains for about six years trying to figure out how to get sheer bad luck to leave me alone for a little while."

"I just let myself think.. 'It won't happen, because I won't allow it.' And it never does. Every time." Brice said with firm conviction.

Gage just slumped in his driver's seat with a defeated sigh. "Easier said than done. Guess I've never had the will power strong enough to psych myself outta thinking anything. I always seem ta get caught up in an idea and then I get completely lost, obsessing about it."

"Yeah, I noticed.." said Brice candidly. "I think that's part of the reason why we get along so well."

Gage didn't know what to think about that particular Brice comment from the peanut gallery. But then he offered a nut of his own. "Nah, I think we get along so well because I never know what's gonna pop outta your mouth until you say it, Craig.  
....So,.. are we gonna eat without nosing into Cap and Marco's emotional business to give them some space to think about it some more?"

"Yes, I think that would be the least problematic for now."

"I concur." Johnny said deadpan. Then he shook his head. "Geesh,  
I'm even beginning to sound like you, ...partner." he grinned in a tease.

"That's not a bad thing, John. The more we think alike, the better we'll function together as a paramedic team." admitted Craig.  
"I see similarities between you and DeSoto all the time."

"You do?"

Brice nodded.

"In what w--? Oh, never mind. Ok, so it's breakfast,.. How about we get to Rampart for all the daytime supplies we need afterwards?" Johnny smirked, asking the question.

"Sounds like a good plan of action. That'll buy approximately.  
one hour fifteen minutes of time where you won't suffer any bad luck."  
Brice announced.

"Huh?"

Craig reiterated. "You chose a direction to go without wavering, Gage.  
Your klutz gene will be so busy being efficient for once, that it won't have time to get you into trouble for at least that long."

"Oh." Johnny sighed, not getting the full benefit of free counseling. "Uhhh, if you say so.." he said with incomprehension.

Craig Brice returned to smiling out the window mildly, and enjoying the aromas coming from the steaming cheese chili dogs in his lap.

Gage completed the drive back to the station, in thoughtful silence.

-  
The hospital was busy for nine a.m.

Joe Early was making his rounds in Neurology, gathering the latest test results for all of his non-emergency ward patients on the fifth floor.

Hounding the nurses station, was a whole plethora of visitors, orderlies,  
student nurses and x-ray techs all wanting a piece of the floor's head nurse working there.

Joe felt more than a little sympathy for Carol Evans, Dixie's official second,  
as he reached around the stretched phone cord between her and the countertop for his pile of lab results. "Sorry, Carol. I'll ...be right over here, reading these. I promise I'll put them back in exactly the same order so I won't mess up your filing..."

Carol barely afforded the silver haired doctor a glance. She was concentrating very hard on the person speaking to her on the phone just then. "I know you just had your stomach surgery Monday.. But Mr.  
Stephan, you just can't eat anything your family brought to you. It'll only cause serious complications..." she told the man in room 602.

Carol pulled the phone away from her ear when the strong greek accented man realized that a mere woman was trying to tell him what to do.

Joe held out his hand, to spare her a tirade, asking for the phone. He said five words. "No, because I ordered NPO." and he hung up the phone.  
He nodded curtly to Ned, the orderly. "Go confiscate the take-out from room 602. And make sure you check all the women's handbags for handouts, too."

"Yes, doctor." replied the orderly.

Carol finally found a brief pause in her work load as she finished giving directions for one visitor, fielded another call from the lab, and handed Dr. Morton the chart he couldn't find in the piles sitting on her countertop.  
"Oh, thanks, Dr. Early. He's been trying to speed up his GI tract and recovery all morning. Only he's too dull witted to understand how dangerous it is to eat before regaining peristalsis and bowel movements."

"I can understand his apparent haste. I just saw the medical bill his insurance company's getting." Joe chuckled.

"Isn't that crazy, doctor?..." Carol said in a side whisper. "What in the world are medical insurance companies thinking nowadays?"

"Dollar signs.." Joe sighed ruefully, drawing double Nixon fingers in the air.

"Almost makes you wanna work for free just to spare the patients grief,  
doesn't it?" she whispered.

"Well, almost.." Joe laughed.

A commotion from down the hall made both of them lift their heads in surprise. Someone screamed. And then, shocking sounds of strange sharp bangs that they couldn't immediately identify, ricchocheted around them.

Dr. Morton and Dr. Early immediately went running down the south wing towards the sound of the noises. Carol snatched up the red phone from the wall and called for hospital security stat to fifth floor Neurology.

Then, she too, went running down the hall with most of the orderlies not tied up with other patients.

She rounded a corner, skidding on her shoes, and saw Joe Early crumpled on the floor, inside room 602, lying on his back beneath a crash cart, with blood on his head.

Carol Evans let out a scream of her own. "Dr. Early!"

But then the room's swinging door shut out the sight of him and the angry woman standing over him with a bedpan.

Just as rapidly, Mr. Stephan, complete with a walker, smashed into Carol with enough force to knock the wind out of her and drive her to the ground. He brandished a small handgun in the air, causing instant mayhem.

Then he disappeared into the ensuing, panicking crush of people that he had caused.  
Carol coughed, violently, trying to get her breath back. She pointed to the wall as Dr. Morton tried to help her to her feet. But her awareness started fleeing from pain. Mike eased her back down onto the floor by his knees from where he was ducking behind an empty gurney and he shouted. "I got it.. Lie still if you're hurt." He jerked only high enough into the air to pull the fire alarm that would signal an instant emergency evacuation for the entire floor.

The hospital operator's voice came overhead a second later. ##Code Red. Code Red. Fifth floor. South wing. Code Red. Code Red...##

Morton yelled at an orderly who had managed to scramble behind the nurses' desk. "Call security and tell them we have an armed man at large in the hospital shooting up the place! A.S.A.P.!"

Then he turned back to Carol to get her true consciousness state and he tried to figure out exactly where the orderly was that Joe had sent into Stephan's room.

"N-ned..d?" she mumbled. "Oh...n--"

"He's probably been shot.." Morton guessed as he lifted Evan's eyelids one at a time peering at her pupils to check their reactions while he held her neck carefully still. "Shhh, Carol. Don't talk. Save your strength. We gotta wait until fast help gets here before we can do anything else."

Carol blacked out before she could tell Mike about Joe Early.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tones went off, large and long in a multiple station run.  
##Stations 99, 8, 24, Engine 2, Engine 39, Engine 20, Battalion 1, Battalion 14, Battalion 9, with Station 9, and Station 51. Unverified fire alarm at Rampart General Hospital. 1000 West Carson Street. Cross street 223rd Ave. 1000 West Carson. Cross street, 223rd Ave. Security reports an evacuation has begun. No further information is available. Time out: 0912. ##

Cap didn't even swallow his last mouthful of chili dog. He spat it out into the kitchen sink. "Whoo boy! Move it, move it. Brice! Grab the triage pack and kits from my office!" he snapped unnecessarily.  
"I'll call us out."

Soon, Cap's booming voice filled the apparatus bay. "Station 51, 10-4. KMG 365.."

The gang pulled the fastest mobilization rollout that they had ever run.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Hospital hall full of patients.

Photo: Engine 2 running by.

Photo: Engine 39 coming at you.

Photo: A fire alarm wall pull box.

Photo: Joe Early, thoughtful close.

Photo: Rampart's driveway in daylight.

Photo: Squad 51 roaring through a parking lot.

Animation: A firing handgun.

Photo: A hospital patient room.

Photo: Triage kit and vest.

Photo: Triage kit, rainbow tape and tags.

Photo: Triage tag.

Photo: Brice, marking time on his watch, in the squad.

*  
From: Sam Iam Date: Tue Sep 27, 2005 4:51 pm Subject: Condition Dr. Black..

Dixie McCall's head snapped up at the declaration of a possible fire on the fifth floor of her hospital by the operator.

She got over an instant of heart pounding sheer denial but then got busy right where she was at the main emergency room desk, to start delegating priorities for the soon to ensue evacuation of that level. Dixie made sure a smile stayed plastered on her face for those few waiting room and outpatient visitors who glanced up curiously at the Code Red general announcement. ::Like that code stuff really fools anyone.:: she scoffed deep inside. ::They know there's trouble somewhere. We're not fooling anybody.  
Someday someone should decide on a new page code for emergencies around here. These are archaic.::

She told the operator to flash a condition orange voice and wall beacon code at all nurses stations displaying patient call lights, to run things by the book. ::That way, our people will take the assigned positions called for by our steady state evacuation plans.:: she nodded mentally. She no sooner had that completed when she saw sharpish movement out of the corner of her eye.

Kel Bracket burst out of the minor surgery treatment room where he had been washing up. "Dixie.. real or false alarm?!"  
he asked the second he was within comfortable earshot. Brackett kept glancing around offering smiles to non-staff passers by even as he minced inwardly as the emergency situation progressed around him. It began subtly, with a greater frequency of stairwell doors opening and closing along with the elevators'.

"I haven't heard yet from security or any staff member from that floor yet." she admitted, glancing self consciously at the ivory phone still resting quiescent in front of her. ::Odd.  
Someone should have at least told us down here if anyone was smelling smoke or seeing it out the patient room windows.:: she thought.

"All right. Let's assume worst case scenario. Dixie, get all the free nurses and orderlies stationed at all the stairwells until the fire department gets here to confirm that we're actually on fire. I want extra gurneys and wheelchairs surrounding the elevators to hold those evacuating those wings so we can move them outta here."

"Already done, Kel." McCall said. "A minute ago. I called a condition orange just now."

"How many stations are coming for this?"

Dixie threw her head up at the always on fire and police scanner parked on a remote relay EKG monitor. "Five stations,  
and three engine companies along with three of their battalion chiefs, probably to organize things on each flank of the building."

"Quite a response for a possible false alarm." Kel frowned half,  
ruefully and half amused.

"It was told differently this time. The fire dispatcher added that an evacuation was underway on the all call." Dixie blinked.

"Has Security called yet?" Kel wanted to know.

"No, strangely enough. I wonder what the trouble is.."

"I'm going up there. Hold the fort?"

"Kel...." McCall began, beginning to feel uneasy for some reason.

"Dix, I'm going to use the stairs, don't worry. Besides, Joe and Mike are up there and they might be able to tell me what's going on a little bit faster than security would if they're being beleaguered by the public like they always are at every possible fire alarm."

"Keep in touch with me." Dixie said reluctantly, pointing to the red phone hanging on the wall by the glass alcoved base station.

"Don't I always?" he grinned, as he disappeared up the nearest stairway for the fifth floor.

Then Dixie moved to the waiting room to calm down the visitors who had begun noticing the growing stream of gowned patients and orderly pushed gurneys leaving the freight elevator doors.

A scream from one of them attracted her attention. Her head whirled and she spotted a blood covered orderly falling out of a side stairwell.  
She ran forward after yelling at a nursing student to go get a doctor or resident.

It was Ned, the orderly. He was trying to staunch a rapid flow of blood from his lower abdomen with his arms and elbows where he had fallen. Dixie immediately pushed him over, grabbed a blanket off a nearby unused gurney and began applying pressure over the wound using the floor and her hands as leverage. "Ned... Ned.. It's Dixie. What happened to you?"

"A....cr-crazy man. He shot me!" Ned gasped quietly, mindful of the public ear ironically even though he was in full gory view. They were already gaping and horrified.

Consciousness was creeping away from him.

"Easy, Ned. Lie still. Let me control your bleeding..." Dixie snapped at a nearby security guard, who was glued to his shoulder radio. "Get over here and take over!" she told him. "Do what I'm doing. I have to notify the police about what's happening now.."

Another fast thinking nursing student found a trauma pack and tore it open for McCall and showed the security guard how to use it, freeing up Dixie to do her new automatic designation as head triage for the ER.  
That had fallen onto her shoulders the moment Ned had tumbled into her arms.

Running for her desk, Dixie broke out a small triage case filled with priority tags and colored strips of ribbon. ::Now's the test of this new system of the fire department's.:: she thought. She handed out a red plastic arm strip and triage tag to the student nurse who had stopped to help, from the wired spooled bundle in the bright orange box.

"Red tag him! Write down Ned's name, vitals and time, and where his wounds are located.." Dixie told the student. "Then get some muscle to help get him onto a gurney until a doctor gets here." she ordered. "When he does, take them all into Treatment Three. Stat! When you give him full flow oxygen, use a portable tank in case we have to evac down here as well. And good job on getting out those trauma dressings so fast. He'll live following some surgery."

"Miss McCall." the nervous nursing student said, ducking her head with an almost non-existent smile as she rushed to carry out her orders.

Dixie rubbed the loose hair out of her eyes with an elbow while she wiped the blood off of her hands on a clean surgical drape from the neatly folded stack on a gurney near her desk that had been waiting to get put away by supply. Then she voiced to all the public. "Leave or stay. Your choice. Think about your safety first! If you need immediate medical attention, there are fire paramedics outside to aid you!"

Almost everyone, left the hospital, in a hurry.

Soon, the ivory phone in front of her rang.

Dixie snatched it up. "Dixie McCall. Emergency." she said quickly.

##Dixie! It's Morton! Four staff members and I are pinned behind the fifth floor nurse's desk, under cover, from a man and a woman, both with handguns. The male assailant's a patient of all things from room 602 ! Tell the FD that there is no fire at all. Get some police support for us A.S.A.P.!! It's not safe! Let absolutely no one come up here. I've been sending those patients and visitors that I can still reach, down only! So far, we've heard no more shots fired past the four or five initial ones a few minutes ago. ##

"Any more injured?" Dixie asked outwardly calm as she watched orderlies and a doctor, who had come from the direction of the cafeteria, as they knelt beside Ned to begin his trauma care. "A shot orderly just collapsed in the waiting room. It's Ned."

##Just Carol. She was shoved against a wall by the jerk who started this whole mess!##

Dixie's heart leaped into her chest. "How is she?" the nurse asked before she could stop herself.

##Stable! A moderate concussion only. She's already starting to wake up for me. Now go! Pass the word along!##

"Mike, Kel's on his way up there! He doesn't know what's going on yet!"

##I'll try to intercept him.## and the phone clicked off line in her ear.

Dixie picked up the red phone on the wall to the hospital operator,  
who had halted all non emergency pages in deference to the conditions red and orange in effect. "ER front desk. Notify the police of two armed suspects running rampant, last seen, on the fifth floor. Then notify the fire department of the same thing. Be sure to tell them that there's no active fire...." Dixie held her breath. "That's right. Now all page a situation Dr. Black on all overheads." McCall didn't even pause at the gasp from the operator who recognized the 'weapons wounding staff' emergency code. She hung up immediately.

Dixie left her desk when the freight and regular elevator doors all started opening in earnest, disgorging its passengers who had fled the fifth floor.

The operator's falsely steady voice started paging the unreal Dr. Black.

She sighed gratefully when security guards appeared and started manning the stairwell doors and elevator lobby for any possible gunshot danger.

She held up two fingers at them so they knew the number of suspects and so they'd check through the window doors and as elevator doors opened for their dangerous presence before letting any evacuating people leave through them. It went unspoken that if the gunpeople were spotted, to bar their way into Emergency by any means possible. ::They aren't police,  
and aren't supposed to risk themselves for us, but I know they will, regardless of their own safety.:: Dixie thought quietly as she tried not to worry herself and those visitors and outpatients milling up to her asking questions.

The evacuation continued.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Stanley heard an update from his station's battalion chief over the line. ##Battalion One to all stations District One responding to Rampart Hospital's incident. There is no fire. Repeat: There is no smoke. However, the fifth floor is the scene of an ongoing seige and shooting. Deploy on standby and assist the evacuation process, using appropriate precautions. ##

Johnny, Roy and Craig Brice immediately ducked their heads and moved around the side of their squad facing away from the hospital. They saw their engine crew, do the same thing.

Captain Stanley motioned. "Move in. Check it out." he told them. "Engine crew, assist evacuees only. Gage, DeSoto, Brice.. go in and see if they need paramedic assistance. Report what you find immediately as you learn it, over HT and keep your heads down!"

The three station 51 paramedics nodded.  
They used the trees and the skyway's underside and the side of the building as heavy cover away from the storey windows to reach the ambulance loading doors of Emergency, carrying only their triage tags, vests and radios in with them.

In the distance, they heard a new batch of sirens growing from the east, from an ample police unit response to the hospital.

And then they were in the building.

--------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
From: Katherine Bird .uk Date: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:33 pm Subject: The Black, the White... and a whole lotta Red...

"Dixie!" Gage called out as soon as Roy and he had spotted her through the frightened hospital visitors and the hurrying medical staff directing them. They headed for her.

Brice, decided on a more practical approach. "Johnny, I'm going to go find a police officer for a report. We can't move around if it's not safe..."

Johnny spun, high in adrenalin, and spoke up. "You do that. Let us know that aspect via HT. We'll go find out the medical needs end of it."

Craig nodded and departed for the front entrance of the hospital and the receptionist, who would be the first person to notice the presence of any police officers who began a storm inside.  
Roy noticed the blood splattered on Dixie's navy colored nursing sweater. "Are many people getting injured by this shooter?"

"Yeah, good question. Where is he?" Gage asked angrily, repositioning the air bottle and its dangling mask a little more tightly around his waist by the straps.

"Fifth floor south, and not just one gunman, but two. And they know each other. Roy, there's only one shooting victim who fell out of a stairwell and a nurse concussed when she got in the way of someone leaving in a hurry."

"Ok, we'll start sweeping for other injured in the stairwells once the police have cleared the way ahead for us." Johnny told her. He blinked when he noticed the bright orange vest that Dixie now wore that had Triage Commander stamped in black across her breast pocket and in bold print on the back. He radioed out to Incident Command. "Squad 51 to Battalion One. Head of triage reports only two casualties so far. She has a radio.." he said, giving her a spare from his jacket pocket. "My partners and I will give further details as soon as we know them. Our captain has our incident tags on his clipboard. We will be heading to the fifth floor, south wing when we are well under police protection.." he told him.

## Battalion One, Squad 51. 10-4. I'll have all pumpers and laddertrucks standing by. I'm sending in your captain to relay to us through you during your sweeps. Keep us fully advised on any possible developing fire situations or other potential life risks.##

"Squad 51, Battalion One. We will advise." Roy answered their district chief.

Dixie grabbed the sleeve of his turnout. "No one's heard from Joe Early since all of this began. He was last seen in the south wing. Kel's gone up after him."

"Stupid!" Johnny muttered. "And he's the one who taught the two of us about considering a scene's safety first."

"Johnny..Joe's his best friend. And mine. Assign blame when this is all over.  
In the mean time, we've a h*ll of a lot of people needing guidance before they go panicking further. It's partially up to us to make sure they don't go hurting themselves trying to get out of here." Dixie changed her ribbing tone and said. "I've activated triage protocols hospital wide." she said, patting the kit sitting on the desk in front of her. "Using the system."

"The chief's already authorized us to use ours.." Roy said. "Ahead of time. We knew to bring ours along the moment a large building full of people was implicated."

A clatter of leather shoes on tiles ended the conversation. Six police officers with their guns drawn ran into the ER for the elevator lobby and the two stairwell hubs following Craig Brice, who was acting as their guide.

Dixie recognized two officers. They came up to the desk. "We're your scouts,  
firemen. Stay behind us until we say the coast's clear." said the fair haired one firmly. Then he smiled. "Hi Dixie.." said Pete Malloy. "Who ticked off a patient this time? Dietary? Or the billing department?" he joked.

Jim Reed, Pete's squad car partner, gave a quiet nod and started ordering the public away from the stairwell and elevator lobbies to give them room to enter. "Pete! I'll take two of these firemen, and you take the other pair."  
he said, carefully keeping his loaded gun pointed up at the ceiling.

The paramedics looked around and saw that Cap was quickly jogging his way over to them from the crowded entryway.

Malloy motioned Brice and Johnny to go with his solo search. "Our other four officers are going for the roof, west and east stairwells, and the basement level to see if we can either negotiate with these two characters or take them out."

Dixie took a deep breath in sharply, but she knew that lethal force was in the picture. ::That's ever since Ned ended up with a bullet in his gut.::

"What are their names?" Reed asked Dixie, ready to commit anything to memory.

"Philomena and Georgio Stephan." she said, checking a chart with fingers that were already starting to shake, not something she usually suffered from,  
no matter how hairy her department became during a work shift.

Gage reached over and squeezed her hand. "It's ok. We'll get him down, and in one piece, too." he said, nodding at Malloy's hand gesture to begin following behind him for the trip up the stairs. "And that goes for Joe, too."  
he promised, heading up the stairwell after Pete but before Craig.  
Brice pulled the landing door shut behind them with a snick.

A second echo of the same sound repeated a few seconds later over the loud evacuation babble, when Officer Jim Reed, the junior most half of Adam-12's patrol team, took Roy and Captain Stanley with him, doing the same search casing, in the opposite stairwell.

Dixie guessed that it would take them less than three minutes to reach Dr. Morton's level, even stealth checking around every corner with a muzzle of answering fire power pointing the way ahead first.

Dixie jumped when the nursing student returned and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Here, Dixie. I thought you'd might like to clean up a little."  
said Karen giving her a small bowl half filled with warm water and a green bottle of Phisoderm and along with another surgical towel.  
"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's ok. Today's the kind of day that'll make anyone jumpy. Including me."

"But you're so... experienced, Miss McCall.. I thought..."

"Well, you thought wrong. I may be wearing these collar insignias but I'm still human and can still feel everything happening around me just as acutely as you can." Dixie told her, a little harshly. Then it was her turn to apologize. "Sorry right back. I don't need to vent just yet. The fact that I just did's freaking me out a little. How's Ned doing?"

"Dr. Theilen says that the bullet missed the descending aorta and only lodged in a section of his large intestine without damaging the liver or bladder. He's earmarked for surgery and he's very stable. A surgical resident's monitoring him while we wait for an outcome in case he needs to be moved from three for someone more critical."  
said Karen.

"Good girl. Now how about pouring us a round of coffee?" Dixie smiled, fingering the hand held radio that she had craftily turned to Squad 51's band. Know-how told her that she could always flip back to the main incident channel if a battalion chief wanted to speak with her by listening to the scanner that was still on behind her for their hail. Right now, she wanted nothing better than to be able to see through four hospital floors to the nightmare drama probably unfolding over all their heads.

"Can we even think about drinking these during a time like this?"  
she said, pouring two cups from a well heated coffee pot.

"Sure, why not?" Dixie asked. "I'm afraid this whole mess will be with us for a long while before it's finally over. It'll do our patients no good if we get overtired and exhausted for not eating or hydrating properly like we have to do anyway. Just think about it, if we get out of commission, then who'll be left to help all of them?" she asked, throwing a chin out at those moving by the desk for the exits.

The very young student nurse, Karen, smiled nervously. "That makes a whole lot of sense, Dixie. I- I'm sorry I questioned you."

"Go right on asking questions, Karen. After all, I'm still one of the senior preceptors for you, even though I'm now wearing this triage vest."

"Speaking of that.. why aren't the top end fire chiefs in here inside the hospital, coordinating efforts to solve our alarm and evacuation problems?" she asked.

Dixie sat down on her desk stool, dragging the radio, ivory and black phones a little closer to her. She invited Karen to take the one next to her from its storing place underneath the pharmaceutical cabinet. "Well, because in this case, a paramedic outranks any senior ranked fire chief wearing a white helmet. You see, when the first units arrive at a multi-casualty incident, they are certainly going to be overwhelmed. Just look around you." Dixie said casting a hand at the ambulance doors where a confusion of fire fighters, police officers and reporters, milled about.

"There is a temptation to set up the management levels of the organization first, so the operational levels will have supervision when they are assigned. Like what you thought, on their current absence in the building.

"If they wanted to do this, most organizations have to use personnel from the first or second wave of responding stations. This removes them from the triage / transportation / treatment provider role, creating a delay in getting patients to primary care. After 10 to 20 minutes, it would be a sad sight to see many rescuers in ICS vests, setting up their operations and no one attending to the victims.

"Remember that it is not necessary to assign mid-management positions until the maximum span of control is exceeded. An incident commander like me in an ER triage role, can easily handle 5 to 7 direct reporting positions before an Operations Chief or medical group supervisor from upstairs or outside, is needed. Assigning your first arriving operational units to hands-on functions as much as possible will speed up your ability to triage, transport and treat your patients.  
That is why Johnny, Roy, Craig and only one fire captain, Hank, was sent inside to rendevous with us."

The young nurse to be just frowned, biting her lip.

Dixie smiled and closed the young woman's hand around her untouched coffee cup. "Karen, if you think about the things that need to be done before you can transport a patient, it becomes clear where you need to assign your initial resources. Here's the most critical mantra of triage.  
Learn it, because Dr. Brackett will expect you to know this better than you know CPR...

"Before you can send a patient to a hospital, you must have an ambulance available and get a destination from an area coordinator.

" Before you can get a destination, you need to know how many of what category of patients are loaded in the ambulance.

" Before you can identify what category a patient is in, they must be tagged and carried to the ambulance loading area.

"Before they can be tagged, they must be triaged...."

Karen's eyes got a little wider. "And no one is better trained to triage already,.. than a..."

"...a paramedic." Dixie said with a little bow of her head in a knowing grin.  
"That's right. They're better than doctors. In that respect. They won't get tripped up on diagnoses when sorting out any sick or injured. They stick with just the basics on determining survivability and nothing more. Now let me tell you how our triage system works now. This is a new system our administrators just accepted from the fire department.. That is why those condition orange lights are flashing over all our work stations. Ready?"

Karen nodded her head.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pete Malloy hit the top stair and dropped onto his stomach after turning the knob ajar on the stairway door above him. He glanced down to make sure that Brice and Johnny were well below him by two full landing turns, before he cracked the door open with his night stick.

The door swung open with a creak onto a pitch black fifth floor to his great dismay and chagrin, absolutely nobody appeared to be around.

Malloy squinted in the dimness, eyes casting around for the nurse's station, where the hospital operator had said that four staff members and one injured nurse were trapped behind.

Photos: None.

*  
From: Patti or Jeff or Cassidy Date: Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:46 pm Subject: Endgame..

The Los Angeles County police officer risked speaking softly. "Hey..." he stage whispered. "You behind the desk. Where are they?"

He heard the sound of a woman's muffled moan and that made him duck his head even lower against the floor between the frame and the door.

"He's down the north wing. We think by the surgical store closet." came back another whisper. Pete Malloy saw the glint of glasses in the dark reflecting the bright light of the stairwell. It was Dr. Morton.

Pete put the safety back on his handgun, and belly crawled to the desk and then, he, too, took cover beneath its high edge. "You put the lights out?"

"Yeah, figured we'd make less visible targets."

"That was smart thinking."

Another moan made Malloy look down and the policeman saw a penlight briefly turn on in someone's hand that illuminated the face of a dazed nurse. "How is she?"

"She'll be okay. Hit her head when Stephan decided that he had had enough of his expensive hospital stay." Mike whispered, still cradling her head in his lap with a few fingers monitoring Carol Evan's neck pulse. "I don't know where his wife is. This surgical tech swears up and down that she hasn't left the room yet."

The young man huddled next to the african american doctor nodded, vigorously. "One of our doctors may still be in there. No one's seen him since the first shots were fired." he fretted, keeping his voice low.

Pete set his lips in a thin line, holstering his gun for the moment. "First things first. We should get this nurse and all of you, out of danger. Can we move her?"

"Yeah, her back and neck weren't injured..." declared the tech, while Morton worked to soothe Carol into keeping quiet.

Pete pulled his hand held radio off his belt and turned the volume way down. "744 to Squad 51. The coast's clear so far. Beeline only from the stairwell straight to the desk. Eat the floor coming over so you're not spotted. Tell your firefighters friends that we need some way to get an adult female who can't walk down the stairwell. She's breathing and semi-conscious. I'll watch your back while the two of you get this nurse and the other staff here to safety."

Morton grinned when he recognized Gage's voice over the handy talkie. ##Already got that covered with a stokes. Here we come....##

"Anyone else up here with us?" Malloy asked the frightened hospital workers.

Morton shook his head. "They all got out except for our missing doctor."

"Ok, we'll look for him next." Pete promised.

Pete saw Brice briefly stand to unscrew the light bulb inside the stairwell on their level so that they could open the door without being exposed by back lighting.

Then he saw Gage prop open the door with a jacket halligan.

The two paramedics softly stomach dragged their bare stokes across the open space of the dim hallway between them, taking care not to rattle the straps inside the chicken wire mesh. They quickly got under the cover of the nurses' station and the eerie condition orange beacon flashing there and they drew their legs up protectively to their chins.

Pete motioned ahead of them. "Wait to get them outta here until I give the high sign. I'm gonna make sure our friends out there don't get any more bright ideas about shooting anyone else."

"How's Ned, the orderly?" Mike asked.

"He's still alive last I heard." Malloy told Morton. "Ok, hold fast until you hear me tap my nightstick on the floor."

Morton and the others nodded.

Pete turned and spoke once more into his radio on the quietest volume. "744 to 2430.."

##Reed here.##

"I'm making my move from the nurses' station, headed your way, on the north side of the wall along the bottom. Firemen behind me will be getting the desk nurse and medical staff outta here down the same stairwell I came up in. Then Brice and Gage are gonna take cover back behind the desk..."

##10-4. I'll cover you. Any sign of those other doctors or the two suspects?## asked Jim, Pete's partner.

"No, 'fraid not..." Malloy sighed. "Here I come.."

##Go.. I see you now.##

Brice and Gage froze in place with their fire gloves on Carol to keep watch over her while Pete scrambled over to the cover of a tipped over gurney and then further down towards the south wing at the crossing intersection of the two fifth floor corridors.

They held their breaths and Johnny tried to shush Evans in her half state with a hand over her mouth while they tried to keep an ear out for Malloy's sharp signal.

From what seemed like an eternity later, came three taps and the flash of dull blue metal of Pete's shotgun as he redrew it and pointed it towards the deeper shadows of the south wing.

"Ok..that's us. All right. Ready?...I got her shoulders, Craig..." whispered Johnny as he and Brice and Morton lifted Carol up and placed her into the stokes basket on the floor. Then they began the slow process of dragging her stretcher across the tiles, keeping on both of their stomachs. Fortunately, the waxed linoleum made it relatively easy for them.

A minute later, and Carol was firmly in the hands of a series of firefighters in the stairwell, being passed down hand to hand as she was conducted to Emergency as fast as they could move her out of danger.  
Gage reluctantly let her go. Brice got his attention with a tap on the shoulder as the rest of the fifth floor staff passed by him.

"Be careful you two. Here." said Dr. Morton, shoving a small airways and emergency kit into the paramedics arms. "For when you find him.." Mike said about Joe Early.  
"And Kel's being stupid, too. He's somewhere up there trying to find Joe."

"We know.." said Johnny unhappily. "Dixie told us.  
We'll find em. After all, we are experts on search and rescue, remember?" Gage whispered sarcastically.

That only made Morton grin as he disappeared down the stairs. Then the doctor's face was all business as he once againgot ready to focus on Carol Evans' well being and care.

The false bravado Johnny put on for Morton's benefit washed away in a wave of nervousness that made him jittery. He ducked back down to the floor imitating Brice for their trip back to the nurses' station. "When I joined the department and said I wanted some excitement, I didn't mean this particular kind of 'fire' fighting." he complained to dump a little stress.

"That's what the men in blue are for, Johnny. To run us some interference so we don't have to worry about it." Craig smiled back."...much." he added. "Officer Malloy wouldn't have told us to stay in a place that he felt wasn't safe. As long as we remain here, nothing'll happen to us."

"We hope.." Gage mumbled.

A flash of gold white light and the thunderous barrage of two fired shots in close quarters startled the firemen, who kissed the ground underneath the counter. The echoing violent whines died away into a frightening silence.

Swallowing around his dry throat, Brice lifted his radio to his ear for word of an outcome. No voices came out of it.

Johnny stayed Craig's hand when he wanted to speak aloud to the two officers on the band with them. Gage put a finger to his lips, listening to an area just ahead of the desk.

A man in white, vivid enough to see, stumbled barefoot down the hall in front of them, trailing a torn I.V. line. It was Mr. Stephan! And the shadow Brice and Johnny could see coming from him, showed the outline of a small revolver clearly..

Johnny's breath whistled loudly in his throat as numbing near panic almost crippled him. But the two firefighters didn't move a muscle, instinctively locked into a freeze.

Grunting in anger, Mr. Stephan staggered past the desk and down the stairwell propped open by Johnny's jacket tool.

Brice didn't wait. He got on the radio. "He just went past us down our stairwell!" he whispered sharply.

##Understood. Reed's gonna follow! Hang tight. And get ready for the lights to come back on. We're gonna start evening the odds!##

The whole floor re-illuminated in a hum of power, right down to the ringing telephones.

Brice reached up over the counter, and yanked them, one by one off their receivers with fast tosses to re-silence them for the two policemen still deep in their hunt for the Stephans. Jim Reed ran by in a duck as he began his careful chase after Georgio.  
"It's safe up to Room 601. Let Malloy check out 602 before you search down the hall any farther than that first room!"

The two paramedics nodded, still staring at the ceiling pointed gun in Reed's hands.

Johnny managed a little bravery. "Were those shots yours or theirs?"

"Theirs.." Jim grinned craftily. "We wouldn't have missed."

And then he was gone, leaving the two paramedics alone and huddled on the floor in each other's arms.

Slowly, Brice and Gage unfolded to begin searching for Brackett and Early within the area Reed told them to.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dixie was still doing a fine job keeping Karen, the student nurse,  
calm. "Managing a scene with multiple patients can be frustrating and difficult. There are just a few steps needed that will help you systematically triage and treat each patient. Now I'm sure you're familiar with the red tags, those suffering from life threatening conditions that might die if not treated as soon as possible. Well, there are two other colors, yellow/delayed, and green/minor..."

Karen began to shift uncomfortably on her seat.

Dixie immediately soothed her.  
"It is important to recognize that you are not abandoning patients by assigning them the Delayed or Minor category tags. Remember that they will be directed to the rescuers that have been assigned to handle those kinds of patients. They will also continually monitor all the yellows and the greens and re-assign them to the red/immediate category if they start to deteriorate, ok?"

Karen nodded nervously.

Dixie went on.. "Now, yellow is delayed, strictly for those patients whose respirations are under 30 per minute, with capillary refill under 2 seconds and able to follow simple commands. Now for the green tags. Remember that patients with minor injuries are still patients. Some of them may be frightened and in pain. Reassure them as much as you can that they will get help and transport as soon as the more severely injured patients have been transported first.  
Lastly,.. black tags are for the deceased.." Dixie shared. "Now.  
For triage sorting..ask those who are not injured or who have only minor injuries to identify themselves. If they can,..tag those with minor injuries as minor/green..."

Karen tried very hard not to fidget as the noise in the ward began to grow from some kind of new development down the hall..

Dixie drew back her attention gently.. "Go to your next victim.  
and think.. respiration first. Determine if the patient is breathing. If yes, immediately check the respiration rate.

"If there's none, reposition the patient. If he or she does not start breathing spontaneously, do not start CPR. Any patient not breathing after repositioning, you'll tag deceased/black. Move on to the next victim.  
Not starting CPR may be the hardest thing you must do at a multiple casualty scene. But if you perform CPR on one patient, many others may die for the sliver of a chance that your pulseless victim may have.  
It isn't worth the price to pay in stopping to help that kind of physical finding." Dixie told her.

"Even with so many doctors and others around to help us figure things out?" the student nurse asked.

"Even then. You can only run a code on a triage scene if you have the personnel to cover it and still do what needs to be done without pause."  
Dixie said.

"But what if they have a neck injury.. or--"

"You will have to position the airway without manually stabilizing the cervical spine. This is counter to what you have been taught and may result in worsening a cervical spine injury. But if you don't reposition the victim immediately, the person will die in the field. You won't have the personnel to carefully stabilize the C-spine and you can't afford to let other victims die while you take time to do it yourself. If the patient begins breathing spontaneously after repositioning, tag the person immediate/red and move on. If necessary, ask an uninjured victim to help maintain the open-airway position. So, to reiterate.  
if a person begins breathing after repositioning, tag immediate/red."

Karen tried not to pay attention to the police officers suddenly rushing in from surrounding areas around their desk. She stared only at Dixie's face for a small measure of calm that she wasn't feeling herself.

McCall was a rock. "Next victim.. If the victim is breathing when you approach, but has a respiratory rate of more than 30, tag immediate/red and move on. Don't take time to formally count the respirations. If the rate seems too fast, tag the victim red and go to the next person.  
So... a respiratory rate greater than thirty is a...."

Karen parroted mechanically, trying not to panic outwardly at the commotion going on near them. "Red tag, immediate.."

"Right... Good." Dixie said. "We're not in danger, Karen, so ignore all the fuss over there. It's not our concern right now. Triaging is. Let's continue... Umm, where was I? Oh, yes...perfusion.  
If you can feel a radial pulse, move on to the mental status assessment.

"If you can't feel it, the blood pressure's at shock levels below 90 systolic.  
Tag the patient immediate/red. If you have an uninjured victim near you then, have them put direct pressure on any visible, serious bleeding and then move on to the next patient. In sum at this step:  
No radial pulse at the wrist means.... red tag/immediate.  
"Next, check for capillary refill by squeezing a nailbed.  
If capillary refill takes more than 2 seconds to return to normal,  
tag the patient immediate/red and have another put direct pressure on any visible, serious bleeding so you can move on to the next patient. Capillary refill that takes greater than 2 seconds to normalize is a red tag/immediate.  
But, If capillary refill is less than 2 seconds, move to getting a mental status.  
"If the victim is unconscious or can't follow simple commands, tag them immediate/red and move on to the next victim. Now, you're probably wondering about these yellow tags, huh?"  
Dixie said, fingering those in her kit.

Karen nodded.

Dixie completed her thought. "If the victim can follow simple commands, tag them yellow/delayed and move on to the next victim.  
And that's all there is to it.." she smiled.

"That's all?" Karen gaped.

"That's all. Triage isn't rocket science, it's one hundred percent common sense. And this new system of the fire department really works. Now we may not have to use it today, there's always hoping."  
Dixie said, her eyes getting a little wide with irony.

"And how.." gushed Karen with stress. "Now that I know what to do,  
I hope not to have to."

"Good girl. Drink your coffee.." Dixie told her.

Karen gulped it down.

"Ok, do you have any questions for me about this triaging system?"

Before Karen could open her mouth, Carol was brought in via stokes and then there was no more time for talking.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They found Joe Early where he lay in 602 by line of sight but nobody couldn't approach him, for Mrs. Stephan was standing over him with a gun.

Malloy was all cop, his nose barely sticking around the edge of the doorframe. He motioned Brice and Gage to get into the flanking rooms to open both connecting doors ajoined on opposite sides of Room 602 so that all three of them could see each other yet still be out of the line of fire from the very upset woman. "What's the problem Philomena? Your husband was receiving the best care possible for his cancer.." the cop asked.

"You american peoples! All you care about is the money in your pockets! My husband is in pain! Not the kind that hurts him here.." she pointed to her stomach where Georgio's stitches were. "But the kind that hurts him here!" and she pointed to her temple, alarmingly, using the same gun she was brandishing.  
"And I don't think I can take much more either.." she weeped.

Then pure fury consumed her and she picked up a steel bedpan and hurled it randomly across the room. It clattered with a racket and bounced right in front of Craig Brice's hiding place in the side doorway. Johnny Gage ducked in sympathy on his side of the room in the mirroring alcove entryway as Craig caught the flying thing before it nailed him.

"Easy, Philomena, take it easy! Now let's relax and think about this, shall we?" Pete asked her without showing himself once iota from around the door frame. "Acting hasty will only get more people hurt.."

That acted like a pistol shot in Philomena and her mouth flopped clean open. "My Georgio hurt somebody?" she asked in her thick Greek accent. The gun in her hand fluttered from her temple,  
back down to at her side.

Malloy used the distraction to motion the firefighters to take a better look at Joe who was still motionless on his back, lying partially underneath the crash cart, his face full of blood from a freely bleeding head wound and split lip.

Gage cocked his head and was alarmed to find that the semi comatose doctor was gurgling. "Doc! Hey! Roll over!" he shouted, unable to stop himself. "Or you're gonna suffocate and choke to death on all the blood!"

Philomena startled, whipping up her gun to point at the source of the sound. Malloy, just as fast, whirled into the main doorway from the hallway, pointing his own gun straight at her. "Hold it right there. I don't want to hurt you. That's just a friend wanting to help that man right over there.." Pete told her, throwing his eyes at the strangling Dr. Early.

Philomena's hand never wavered. Neither did Malloy's. She didn't even seem to care that a gun, just as lethal as her own, was aimed right back at her chest in a line of kill shot.  
"What man?" she asked. She didn't seem able to comprehend that her husband's doctor was lying in a pool of blood at her feet. All she cared about was her husband.

Malloy changed tactics and he left the two firemen paramedics to figure out Joe's urgent dilemma on their own. He had to worry about his own skin, first. "Where's Georgio, Phila? Can you tell me that? It wouldn't be right if he keeps on trying to hurt the people who are only trying to help him, would it?"

Philomena tipped her head in high emotional distress."No,  
it wouldn't be right. I have to protect him.. don't you see? I'm his wife." she sobbed.

It was then the police officer and two paramedics realized that Philomena was deep in the early stages of a complete acute, nervous breakdown.

Johnny snapped his mind back to the present. ::Joe'll die if I don't do something fast..:: He continued to shout. "Joe!  
Roll over! You're bleeding real bad into your mouth. Can you hear me?! Joe?!"

But Joe only choked, his breathing attempts growing weaker as he drown in blood. Then he stilled, turning blue.

Thinking fast, Gage retreated back into 601 and fumbled with that room's crash cart, grabbing up a whole box of endotracheal tube guide wires. He ripped it open and began to twist them together. "I'm gonna hook his belt,  
Brice, to drag him over here! But I'm gonna need a distraction first."

"What kind of distraction?" Craig asked him.

"I don't know! Think of something. You always tell everybody indirectly how smart you are...so live up to it." Johnny grunted, groping cross the floor with his swifty improvised tether, still keeping under heavy cover away from Mrs. Stephan's line of sight.

The hooked end of the wire flipped open Joe's white lab coat almost instantly, but complete missed snagging a belt loop.

Groaning, Gage tried again while tuning out the desperate dialogue carrying on between Malloy and Philomena, still locked one on one beneath mutually pointing gun muzzles.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Stanley felt alone in the crowd of e.r. folk. He cast about, only half listening to his HT when he caught word that Mr. Stephan was on his way down the west stairwell, still armed.  
And that, cast pure lead into his chest. "This has to stop. This has to stop now.." he mumbled.

Not considering his own safety in his emotional turmoil, Cap snuck by the security guards and started jogging up that same stairwell to take matters into his own hands.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Reed was pure stealth on the stairs. He took the steps quietly, one by one, letting his gun's muzzle aim whereever his eyes were looking as he pursued Mr. Stephan down the landing.  
He didn't say a word, knowing that any noise he made might be rewarded with the snapping crack of a bullet sent his way. He didn't like going downwards in an active gun pursuit. He never did.  
Going in a downward direction was never good because balance wasn't preserved.

Maybe it was because he was thinking so hard, but the next turn, brought him face to face with a charging madman in a patient gown.

Jim Reed raised his gun and braced on the steps to fire at Mr. Stephan at point blank range. But he didn't pull the trigger.  
Not yet. He began to search for a reason for a need to shoot in those few precious seconds while he looked for the telltale glint of blue black metal Georgio's hand.

-  
On the third try, Johnny did it, snagging Joe's belt firmly with his improvised dragging wire. "Craig! I got him! Distract her while I move him over to me!"

Brice, looked around desperately for some means but then his eyes alighted on the bedpan next to him. He picked it up.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Malloy told Philomena a simple thing.

A lie.

"Mrs. Stephan, your husband has given up to our officers."  
he told her, holding up the radio he carried in his other hand slowly. "I just heard him do it." said Pete, keeping his bead on the distraught woman.

"What?" Philomena blinked. "No..." she started to fret, suddenly dropping her gun's muzzle away from her silver badged target. "That's impossible! We agreed that we would not do this thing until the doctors promised to help him using assistance from your government for all the bills. They... they are growing too much.." she wailed.

From out in the hall, the sound of distant shots fired, drifted into the room.

The effect on Philomena was dramatic. "Georgio?! Why are you killing people?! The war was over twenty five years ago..." she whispered in agony, dropping her eyes away from Reed while her chin lifted in an attempt to peer down the hallway.

Brice reacted, and threw the bedpan at the code blue button over the patient rumpled bed. It activated and soon the hospital operator began her urgent page. ##Code blue. Code blue. Room 602. Code blue. Code blue. ##

At the same moment, Gage pulled back on the wire, dragging Joe Early swiftly across the floor toward him.

Startled at the sudden activity, Philomena whirled and fired blindly.  
Two bullets bounced off the floor in between Joe's shoes as he was dragged to safety.

"Drop it!" roared Malloy, taking the safety off of his gun.

With a sob, Philomena cast down her gun and fled out the open window onto the ledge outside the hospital.

Malloy just as quickly ran over to the fallen gun, and disarmed it.  
He got on his radio. "744 to Battalion One. We've got a woman on the east side of the building on a window ledge. Possibly suicidal.  
The gun threat in room 602, is over." he told them.

##10-4, LAPD. Sending up a ladder and bucket team a.s.a.p.##

Brice saw that the coast was clear and he ignored the drama unfolding outside the window. He got to Gage's side as fast as he could. "Johnny?"

Gage had Joe Early flipped over onto his side, draining out a lot of free blood and saliva. "He's able to breathe.......now.  
Just gotta get some more of this out." he added more sarcastically. "What about Philomena?"

"She's no longer our problem." Craig said as he and Johnny helped Early.  
They held his mouth open while he worked it free, mouthful by coughed mouthful as he began to wake up under their ministrations.

Soon, the code blue team arrived from an emergency freight elevator into 602 to assist the relieved paramedics on managing Joe's recovery.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Reed's finger was just about to press on the trigger when a sudden blast of water from a fire hose suddenly pinned the crazed man against the wall.

The completely surprised officer whirled to find a determined Captain Stanley standing next to an equally pissed off Dr. Brackett, helping him on the firehose nozzle.

A huge smile filled the young officer's face when they finally turned the water off. Mr. Stephan dropped his gun and started clutching his side where the water had stung his surgical stitches and tore a few open. "Now's that's a novel way to clean up the picture." said Reed.

Kel started to laugh. So did Cap, until a spasm gripped him around his throat and chest. He bent over and fell against the wall, dropping the charged firehose.

Dr. Brackett grabbed him. "Captain Stanley? What is it?"

"My chest.." Hank hissed. "It's been hurting since last night.."

"Put your arm over my shoulder. Let's get you downstairs and I'll take a look at you. Can you walk?" Dr. Brackett asked. He motioned for a firefighter to help him with Cap even as a whole slew of cops ran up past them to help Officer Reed cuff Mr. Stephan.

"Yeah..yeah. I think so.. This is weird.." he gasped. "I'm healthy as an ox I tell you."

"Maybe so. But if this is a new problem, I wanna know all about it.  
Let me run a few tests on you?"

"Fine by me.. Oooo." Cap grimaced.

Brackett caught more of the captain's weight. "Orderly! Get a gurney over here on the double!" he said as they exited the stairwell.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roy DeSoto had been the first firefighter on the ledge to handle Mrs. Stephan's situation. And he was still talking to her as she cried, holding onto the ledge's thin steel safety railing, the only barrier between herself and the five story fall to the ground.

"Mrs. Stephan. Your husband is fine. I don't know what you thought earlier in the room, but..I- I just got word that he's been taken into safe custody by the police. He hasn't been killed like you say you think he has. No one else has been shot. Just the one orderly. And he's gonna be fine."

"Georgio...?" she whispered. "My Georgio..."

"He's ok. Please, d- don't do anything hasty. We all just wanna help ya." Roy said from the window,stalling, as he watched the bucket, still three stories below, rise slowly up towards them.

Philomena made a face and suddenly saw down the front of her blouse, noticing the splatters of blood just then on her hands and sleeves. "What...what did I do?.. " she asked softly, trembling.  
"Did I hurt someone?"

DeSoto carefully turned up his radio as he listened to Johnny and Brice give a care report to those down in the e.r. base station through the HT. He heard his partners mention the fact that Joe wasn't shot anywhere, only beaned from something that had inflicted blunt trauma. Johnny guessed over the airwaves that Joe had been knocked out with a patient's bedpan from what blood he had remembered seeing on the one Philomena had thrown. "Uhh,..not badly. Anger does sometimes get the best of people. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're under a lot of stress right now and sometimes that could be just coming out in an odd way." DeSoto reasoned with a small smile. "It's really ok to be feeling the way you are now."

But Philomena wasn't listening. "I... beat up..somebody?" she asked again, in growing horror. She had very good hearing and she had listened to every word coming from Johnny and Brice's HT transmission while they worked on Joe Early, inside.  
Without a word, Mrs. Stephan rose up from her crouch on the window ledge and leaped off the height before anyone could stop her.

-  
Joe Early and Captain Stanley lay on matching beds in the same treatment room. Roy was taking Hank's blood pressure. Kel bounced back and forth between his two patients, chattering worse than Dixie in a firm mother hen mode. Cap's EKG was on audible and his I.V. was T.K.O.

"I'm seeing nothing out of the ordinary, captain." Kel concluded,  
pulling off his stethoscope. He began folding up the cardiac strip for Hank's patient chart. "You're absolutely fine. Most likely your symptoms are all just psychosomatic because you're holding in something that's bothering you, like the chaplain said you were doing."

"Mind caused? Whew.. that's a relief.." sighed Cap on the table. "For a minute on those stairs, I thought I was a goner. Guess I'm just feeling old today."

The hospital chaplain stood, acting his role as a CISM counselor for both Cap and Marco. And they were finally talking together freely.

The man of the cloth continued his counsel and he chuckled.  
"I frequently run into the old 'dinosaurs,' who says, 'I don't need this, but I'll be here to see you kids through it.' Then, during debriefing, the dino'll bring up a car accident that happened 30 years ago, and he'll recall every detail. I can't stress enough the need to talk it all out, fellas." he says. "I don't care if you talk to your steering wheel, your dog, your partner or your spouse. Part of the whole macho image in emergency services is having this mindset about not taking your work home to the family, but our entire team tells people, 'When you've had a tough call, your kids know as soon your foot hits the door that something is different with Dad. They aren't sure what and don't understand all the ins and outs, but we always strongly encourage everyone to talk to their spouse and kids about the call. The more you talk about an event, the easier it is for you to park it in the right spot. It's having the attitude of, 'I gotta suck it in; I gotta keep it in my gut; I can't talk about it,' for fear of being a wimp or not 'one of the boys' that's self-defeating." said the chaplain.

Dr. Brackett agreed with him.  
"I see emergency services folks having heart attacks at age 59 and cirrhosis at age 56," said Kel. "They're chewing up their bodies over 20 years of service, because they didn't go park stuff. Bottling things up had literally eaten away at them. So keep what the chaplain's telling you in mind. Every time you talk about an incident, it'll take a little more of the load off your shoulders."

"CISM is not a magical thing that cures all. But neither is it a stigma, boys. So use it. And use me. Now. Both the good doctor and I are after the same thing here. It's all about keeping healthy people like the both of you, healthy and strong." said the chaplain. "You see, the principle of all this is that sometimes decent folks like yourselves just need to get a little mental overhaul or two done to learn how to handle the emotions which can come barreling down on a truly bad call. Please, call me anytime you want to talk about one of those and I promise, I'll drop everything I'm doing and stop by the stationhouse or to your own home." and the chaplain handed Captain Stanley a small light blue business card.

"O.k." promised Marco and Hank.

Joe Early was thoughtful. "So, Johnny. The nurses are telling me that you signalled my potential code by throwing a bedpan at the code blue button on the wall?" he chuckled as a nurse cleaned up his face and a resident got a local ready to stitch up his lip.

"I didn't think of that gem, doc. Brice did." Gage complained.

Cap laughed. "And I thought I was the one acting a little odd with my reactions. I wouldn't call that a by the book protocol, Craig. What happened to your personal mantra of being letter perfect in all that you do on the job?"

Brice just shrugged, finding himself at a loss for an answer.

"There's being perfect and then there's being a genuine menace to society, Cap." sighed Roy DeSoto. "I don't think a flying bed pan'll count for too much in the long run."

"Guess it won't." Cap agreed.

"Not unless you're dying under another crash cart and we're being held at bay by gunpoint again." Gage quipped to Joe Early. "Then, it just might become another standard emergency medical hospital protocol if people begin to see how useful that little trick is."

Dixie and her student nurse Karen, just rolled their eyes.

-  
It was three days later,

Gage and Brice were drying the dishes early in the morning in the kitchen, when the sound of an engine pulling up in the backyard,  
garnered their attention. "Shh, here they come.."

Brice snickered. "I wonder how it went. Did Brackett and the others live up to their word?"

"They must have." laughed Gage, as he peeked through the blinds at the angry expressions he was seeing on the rest of the gang as they hopped off the old refurbished engine in their dress uniforms.  
"Well, well, well. Looks like this joking stew is well seasoned and ready to eat."

Brice smiled and handed Johnny another clean towel.

Gil, filling in for Marco while he took a few days off to talk with the CISM counselors some more, asked. "What did you two do?"

Gage, started smiling. "We didn't do anything. Dixie, Kel and Joe did all of it for us.." he said, without elaborating.

Gil cracked Johnny in the butt with a wet towel for being evasive.

Gage howled, rubbed a cheek, and then, finally, answered. "They took an empty box, put a couple of full soda cans in it to weigh it down and tied it to the back bumper of our old engine with some string. They then wrote on it with black marker "FREE KITTENS. just before the start of Dixie's parade event.."

"They didn't." chuckled Gil.

"They did." said Brice laughing even louder, his voice barely a squeak when it came out.

Cap, once he got inside the station, made sure he glared good and hard at Craig and Johnny.

But no one glared harder at them, than Chet Kelly.

He said. "We left the station this morning and got pulled over by the fuzz about ten miles down the road I'll have you know. Clowns, Cap. The both of them!"

"Well, what happened?" asked Gil, fighting to keep from smiling.

Stoker told him. "The cop at first was furious, but then saw he Johnny and Brice's little joking stunt and couldn't stop laughing.

"And we went through that whole d*mned parade trying to figure out why people kept pulling up beside us, yelling." Hank scowled.

"Well, well well, Mr. Craig T. Brice. Guess we can rest on our laurels now.  
grinned Gage. "That prank of yours, has simply got to be the best joke I've ever had the pleasure to help sow." Johnny said with a lopsided smirk. "Congratulations, Craig. I think we pulled it off in grand style,..like true masters." and he started to laugh aloud to the point of tears.

Brice had only one thing to say to that. "Phantom, read it and weep." he told Chet and the others, winking just his left eye..."...for I do believe that you all......have just been seriously ...had."

FIN -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photos: None.

*  
Emergency Theater Live =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

ETL Hosts : Patti Keiper and Erin James in the United States

** Emergency Theater Live "Offstory" Email Address For Midi Music Requests and General Inquiries . Emergency Theater Live Homepage

.com/group/emergencytheaterlive Writer's Pre-Production Distribution Site

.com/emergencyfans Emergency Theater Live /Emergency Fans Unite at MySpace

ETL's Emergency Community Forum /

____________________________________

Mark VII Productions, NBC, and Universal owns all of Emergency! and its Characters. 2009 . All rights reserved.

=========================

***NOTE: All author writings submitted to the theater will be set free onto the web to reach as many readers as we can manage to find. Contributing to any ETL episode means that has permission to publish your work in the manner presented here on this website and on text versions of the stories on other sites. All web audience writers or volunteer consultants and their corresponding emails will be duly recorded and left in place within each show's music and imaged airing episode, pointing out that fan or professional EMS personnel's creative contribution. Theater Host- Emergency Theater Live! .. 


End file.
